June 8, 2020
SPRIM Partners with Health Catalyst to Analyze COVID-19 Impact on NASH and NAFLD
By Philippe Mendiharat
SPRIM and Health Catalyst partner to jumpstart understanding of COVID-19 impact on NASH and NAFLD population to advance clinical trials for liver disease.
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to sweep across the globe, new concerns arise every day about the effect of COVID-19 on a patient’s long-term health. Among those emerging concerns is the association of COVID-19 and liver impairment. Through a new partnership, SPRIM, a global life science company specialized in digital health and biotech innovation and Health Catalyst, a leading provider of healthcare data and analytics technology and services organization are seeking real-world evidence to better understand that finding and enable a path forward for liver-related drug discovery.
A New Partnership Formed on Real-World Evidence
SPRIM’s Fibronostics venture has developed LiverFASt, a patented and non-invasive diagnostics tool providing a clinically valid assessment of liver condition. The LiverFASt AI platform works by analyzing ten biomarkers from a routine blood draw. At present, biopsy information is not readily available across real-world data sources, leaving clinicians with incomplete assessments of NASH and NAFLD patients. The application of LiverFASt’s non-invasive biomarkers on Health Catalyst’s COVID-19 National Registry helps solve this issue by providing a powerful, digital means of confirming patient diagnosis and susceptibility to liver disease.
On the other side of the partnership, Health Catalyst’s COVID-19 National Registry, powered by Touchstone™ platform, includes more than 64,000 COVID-19 patients, with an additional 500,000 patients with COVID-related symptoms that are being analyzed for risk of being an undiagnosed COVID patient, and more than 250,000 NAFLD and 22,000 NASH patients.
Combining the Health Catalyst COVID-19 National Registry with the power of the LiverFASt screening and diagnostics capabilities will enable the generation of real-world evidence that informs the understanding and characterization of COVID-19 on the severity and prognosis of liver dysfunction in the following ways:
- Predict which patients are more likely to end up with liver dysfunction, failure, liver transplant or death.
- Within the population of patients diagnosed with NASH and NAFLD, predict the degree of steatosis and screen for patients who are likely to progress from minimal to advanced fibrosis, cirrhosis, and liver cancer. This will enable the stratification of patients as NAFLD, NASH or severe NASH with predictions for long-term outcomes.
- Based on the evaluation of steatosis, inflammation, and fibrosis, select eligible patients for clinical trials and predict their response to treatments.
These deep insights and the expanded understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on NASH and NAFLD populations can help facilitate liver-related drug discovery by enabling the progression of clinical trials for NASH and NAFLD.
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