Conatus Pharmaceuticals Updates Development Strategy and 2014 Milestones

Conatus Pharmaceuticals

today announced plans to initiate a placebo-controlled (open to sponsor) Phase 2b clinical trial in the second half of 2014 evaluating its lead drug candidate emricasan in Post Orthotopic Liver Transplant (POLT) recipients. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Orphan Drug Designation to emricasan in late 2013 for the treatment of liver transplant recipients with reestablished fibrosis to delay the progression to cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease. The trial will focus on the subset of POLT patients with reestablished liver fibrosis as a result of recurrent post-transplant hepatitis C virus infection who have successfully achieved a sustained viral response following HCV antiviral therapy (HCV-POLT).