Daix (France), April 20, 2017 – 07:30 am CEST – Inventiva, a biopharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies, particularly to treat fibrosis, announced today the presentation of a poster on its lead drug candidate IVA337 at the 2017 International Liver Congress™ annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of the Liver, currently being held in Amsterdam. The poster entitled “IVA337, a Pan-PPAR Agonist, Reduces NASH Features and Inhibits the Inflammasome in Murine Models of NASH” authored by Guillaume Wettstein, et al, discussed the effect of IVA337 in two mechanistically different preclinical models of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and studied its effect on crucial pathways implicated in NASH and fibrosis development.
“The results of this preclinical study further confirm the potential of IVA337 as a treatment for NASH,” said Dr. Pierre Broqua, Chief Scientific Officer and Cofounder of Inventiva. “The findings demonstrate that IVA337 inhibits the development of NASH through the normalization of different metabolic parameters such as insulin-resistance, through activation of fatty acid ß-oxidation, and inhibition of the inflammasome known to be a trigger of liver inflammation and fibrosis.”
Study Design and Results
1) C57bl/6 mice were fed for 3 weeks with methionine-choline deficient (MCD) diet and simultaneously treated with IVA337
2) Foz/foz mice received a high fat diet (HFD) for 6 weeks to initiate NASH pathology and were kept under HFD alone or in combination with IVA337 for another 6 weeks.
IVA337 Activity in the Methionine-Choline Deficient Diet Model
IVA337 inhibits steatosis, inflammation, and the expression of pro-fibrotic genes, and improved global liver condition.
IVA337 Activity in the foz/foz Model
? IVA337 has no effect on food intake or weight, quickly normalizes glycemia and improves glucose tolerance.
? IVA337 restores insulin sensitivity
? IVA337 improves NASH features – steatosis, ballooning, and inflammation were reduced compared to the HFD control group.
? IVA337 inhibits the expression of pro-fibrotic genes
In both models, IVA337 demonstrated positive effects on the biological pathways that are altered during NASH development. Specifically, IVA337 decreased the expression of the inflammasome components such as caspase 1, IL-1 et IL-18 in both models, and activated the expression of genes regulating fatty acid catabolism. IVA337 also decreased the expression of inflammatory factors such as CCR2, CCL5 and NF?B.
About the International Liver CongressTM
The International Liver Congress™ is the annual meeting of European Association for the Study of the Liver, and the flagship event in EASL’s educational calendar. The Congress is attended by scientific and medical experts from a broad range of fields including hepatology, gastroenterology, internal medicine, cell biology, transplant surgery, infectious diseases, microbiology and virology, pharmacology, pathology, radiology and imaging. Specialists share recent data, present studies and findings, and discuss the hottest topics on liver disease. The 2017 Congress is taking place April 19-23, 2017 at the RAI Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The full EASL 2017 scientific program can be found at http://ilc-congress.eu
About Inventiva: www.inventivapharma.com
Inventiva is a biopharmaceutical company specialized in the development of drugs interacting with nuclear receptors, transcription factors and epigenetic modulators. Inventiva’s research engine opens up novel breakthrough therapies against fibrotic diseases, cancers and orphan diseases with substantial unmet medical needs.
IVA337, its lead product, is an anti-fibrotic treatment with a strong action mechanism permitting the activation of all three alpha, gamma and delta PPARs (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors), which play key roles in controlling the fibrotic process. Its anti-fibrotic action targets two initial indications with substantial unmet medical need: NASH, a severe and increasingly prevalent liver disease already affecting over 30 million people in the United States, and systemic sclerosis, a disease with a very high mortality rate and for which there is no approved treatment to date.
Inventiva is also developing in parallel, a second clinical product, IVA336, which is a treatment for three different forms of mucopolysaccharidosis: MPS I or Hurler-Scheie syndrome, MPS II or Hunter syndrome and MPS VI also known as MaroteauxLamy syndrome. Inventiva has a preclinical stage oncology portfolio.
Inventiva benefits from partnerships with world-leading research entities such as the Institut Curie. Two strategic commercial partnerships, one of which is at clinical stage, have also been developed with AbbVie and Boehringer Ingelheim, making Inventiva eligible for preclinical, clinical, regulatory and commercial milestone payments, in addition to royalties on the products resulting from the partnerships.
Inventiva employs over 100 highly qualified employees and owns state-of-the-art R&D facilities near Dijon, acquired from the international pharmaceutical group Abbott. The Company owns, a proprietary chemical library of over 240,000 molecules as well as integrated biology, chemistry, ADME and pharmacology platforms.
