NASH and Pfizer NASH-fo­cused Akero Ther­a

NASH and Pfizer


NASH-fo­cused Akero Ther­a­peu­tics ex­tends its run­way by an­oth­er year with Pfiz­er's help
by Lei Lei Wu
Two years ago, Akero Ther­a­peu­tics laid out what one an­a­lyst called the "best-in-class NASH da­ta so far" in a field lit­tered with tri­al fail­ures and am­bigu­ous read­outs. Fol­low­ing those in­ter­im Phase II re­sults, Akero em­barked on a larg­er Phase II tri­al that is sup­posed to re­port out lat­er this year.

But things weren’t look­ing up for the San Fran­cis­co-based biotech when it re­vealed in its Q1 earn­ings re­port that it had just a year and a half of cash left — not enough to push its drug in­to piv­otal Phase III clin­i­cal tri­als that would sup­port an FDA ap­proval.

https://endpts.com/a-perpetual-loser-at-the-h...loid-flop/

En­ter Pfiz­er and Her­cules Cap­i­tal.

Pfiz­er will in­vest $25 mil­lion via its Break­through Growth Ini­tia­tive to buy ap­prox­i­mate­ly 6.7% of Akero, and Pfiz­er’s VP of dis­cov­ery & de­vel­op­ment Jeff Pf­ef­fer­ko­rn will get a seat on Akero’s new­ly formed sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board. Along­side Pfiz­er, ven­ture lend­ing com­pa­ny Her­cules will loan up to $100 mil­lion to Akero, with $10 mil­lion avail­able im­me­di­ate­ly.

https://endpts.com/a-perpetual-loser-at-the-h...loid-flop/