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On Monday, at 10:23 a.m. GMT-5, Akero Therapeutics (AKRO, Financials) saw its stock soar by 106.63%, closing at $54.10, following the release of promising preliminary results from its Phase 2b SYMMETRY study.
The Akero statement underlined how well their medicine efruxifermin treats compensated cirrhosis brought on by metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis.
Akero claims that compared to 15 percent of patients on placebo, 39 percent of patients getting a 50-milligram dosage of EFX showed at least a one-stage improvement in liver fibrosis without worsening MASH, according to the SYMMETRY trial reaching the 96-week milestone. Over the placebo group, this reflects a 24 percent larger impact size. Akero claimed a 17 percent advantage in an intent-to- treat analysis, which accounted for all participants by considering missing biopsies as failures, 29 percent of the EFX group exhibited comparable improvements vs 12 percent in the placebo group.
The company's release also highlighted how, in the 50-milligram group, the advantages of EFX more than quadrupled from week 36 to week 96. Furthermore, among patients not on GLP-1 at baseline, 45 percent of those on EFX exhibited cirrhosis reversal compared to 17 percent on placebo, suggesting the benefits were independent of GLP-1 treatment, says Akero.
Generally speaking, EFX was tolerated well; there were no treatment group fatalities recorded. Akero said that the most often occurring negative events were mild to severe gastrointestinal problems including nausea and diarrhea.
Akero intends to keep assessing the 50-milligram EFX dosage in its current Phase 3 SYNCHRONY Outcomes research, which targets patients with compensated cirrhosis brought on by MASH, the firm said. Akero underlined that these results provide the first published proof of cirrhosis reversal in this patient group.
According to Akero, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis is a major cause of liver transplants and liver cancer in the United States and Europe as well as expected to impact three million Americans by 2030.
This article first appeared on GuruFocus.