The Challenge
Stop MASH!
The spectrum of Metabolic dysfunction–associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) encompasses different abnormalities, ranging from a simple steatosis to metabolic dysfunction–associated steatohepatitis (MASH) with various degrees of inflammation, ballooning, necrosis, fibrosis, and ultimately, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The heterogeneity of the diseases and its complex pathophysiological mechanisms represent a challenge to defining potent drugs for all patients with MASH. Delineating the mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of MASLD is crucial to managing MALSD and its comorbidities obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Fatty liver - a global disease
MASLD is the most common chronic liver disease affecting 30% of the global population. Not only adults are affected, even every 3rd child with obesity develops MASLD. Wordwide it affects more than 1.7 billion patients, while 400 million suffer from MASH - the leading cause for liver cirrhosis, transplantation, and liver carcinoma. The yearly growth for MASLD patients is strong (2.2%) and even higher for MASH patients (6.3%).
Next to the high medical need MASLD creates a high financial pressure on the health systems. MASLD-related annual direct medical costs in Europe and USA are about €126B per year. Therefore, there is a high medical need to develop pharmacotherapies for this complex disease.
Therapeutic approaches that integrate multiple combined treatments, targeting diverse metabolic risk factors simultaneously, hold greater promise for enhancing MASH and its associated comorbidities. It is expected that in the future, a precision medicine-oriented combination therapy strategy will be employed to address the progressive stages of MASLD.
Therapeutic approaches that integrate multiple combined treatments, targeting diverse metabolic risk factors simultaneously, hold greater promise for enhancing MASH and its associated comorbidities. It is expected that in the future, a precision medicine-oriented combination therapy strategy will be employed to address the progressive stages of MASLD.
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