Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH)

Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a subtype of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), is characterized by the presence of excessive accumulation of lipids in hepatocytes (steatosis) with inflammation and hepatocyte injury.

NASH can progress from simple fatty liver and develop into more serious forms of the disease, including fibrosis, cirrhosis, and cancer(1). In the United States, NASH-associated cirrhosis is currently the third most frequent reason for liver transplantation and is predicted to soon become the leading cause.

Despite the fact that NASH is one of the most common diseases in Western countries, there is currently no approved therapy for NASH. Currently, more than 20 drugs are being developed for patients at different stages of the disease, such as early-stage NASH patients or those with an advanced stage of fibrosis and/or cirrhosis.

However, these drugs are still in various stages of clinical trials, and only a few of them will be fully approved and marketed. Clearly, there is an urgent need for the development of effective drugs for the treatment of NASH-related diseases.

To date, NASH research has been limited to poorly-indicative animal models, or 2D human models, which lack longevity and important hepatocyte-nonparenchymal cell (NPC) interactions. Physiologically relevant human liver NASH models with greater in vitro longevity and containing all liver cell types related to the disease hold promise as tools to reliably identify more effective, non-toxic drugs to treat NASH.

InSphero is currently developing a NASH model for high-throughput efficacy screening of anti-NASH drugs. If you are interested in early-stage testing and endpoint development of this new 3D InSight™ Human Liver NASH Model, developed using the ground-breaking power of 3D cell culture technology.

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