After working on separate medications for years, pharma giants Novartis AG and Pfizer will collaborate to develop combination treatments for a liver disease. Experts predict a highly lucrative market for such treatments, Reuters reports.
The two drugmakers plan to develop combination therapies to help combat nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, a chronic disease in which fat accumulates in the liver. Left unchecked, the buildup causes liver inflammation and eventually liver failure. The fatty liver disease, closely associated with obesity and diabetes, is poised to become the leading cause of liver transplants by 2020.
Novartis and Pfizer will use the medicines they have been working on separately. Scientists at both companies say attacking NASH with two or more drugs that act in the liver differently will help patients suffering from the disease.
"The way this disease develops is, first you get fat in the liver, and then for reasons which nobody understands, the fat provokes an inflammatory response ... and then lastly, you get scarring and fibrosis," Morris Birnbaum, MD, PhD, Pfizer's chief scientific officer for internal medicine, told Reuters. He added that the combination therapy would target all these stages.
Pfizer has medications aimed at reducing fat accumulation in the liver. Novartis' drugs fight liver inflammation and scarring.
Estimates show the market for fatty liver treatments will grow to $20 billion to $25 billion.
Read the full report here.