Conatus Pharmaceuticals has received a $7 million payment from Novartis under its exclusive license for the global development and commercialization of emricasan. Conatus’ orally-active pan-caspase inhibitor, emricasan, has demonstrated activity across a broad spectrum of liver diseases, and is currently being evaluated in four Phase IIb trials as a potential treatment for liver cirrhosis and fibrosis caused by nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) or hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection.

With the secured and anticipated funding provided under the Novartis agreement, Conatus believes that current financial resources are sufficient to maintain operations and ongoing clinical development activities through the end of 2019, as well as to fund anticipated pipeline expansion activities.

“We are very pleased to advance to effective license status in our collaboration with Novartis,” said Conatus co-founder, president and chief executive officer, Steven J. Mento, Ph.D., “and we look forward to working together on emricasan’s development, both as a single agent for NASH cirrhosis and as a component of potential drug combinations for NASH fibrosis. In parallel, we are advancing toward a planned announcement later in 2017 of independent pipeline development opportunities aimed at building additional long-term value for our shareholders beyond emricasan.”