Versantis co-founder Meriam Kabajj and Vincent Forster
Our portfolio company Versantis (Redalpine Capital III), developing novel therapies for liver diseases, today announced positive results from the Phase 1b clinical trial of its lead candidate VS-01 in patients with decompensated cirrhosis. VS-01 is a potentially lifesaving, multi-organ support therapy that aims to reverse Acute-on-Chronic Liver Failure (ACLF), by enhancing the clearance of ammonia and other toxins from the body.
The trial results showed that VS-01 was safe and well tolerated, with no toxicities or unexpected safety signals. The promising data supports now the advancement of VS-01 into Phase 2 starting early 2022 to determine efficacy. Versantis hopes to soon provide a meaningful new treatment option to patients with acute liver diseases, for which today there is still a large unmet medical need.
Globally 850 million people live with a liver disease and 2 million die every year, primarily due to cirrhosis. Most cirrhotic patients eventually decompensate, requiring hospitalization due to complications, such as hepatic encephalopathy (HE) or acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF). As of today, no specific treatments are approved to support such cases, which are associated with high mortality if not medically managed early. By reversing HE and the multi-organ failure cascade of ACLF, VS-01 aims to urgently fill this medical gap.
We congratulate the entire Versantis team for achieving this huge milestone.
For more information, please visit Versantis’ Homepage or read this article.