Two New Liver Fibrosis Rodent Models Launched by Crown Bioscience

San Diego, Calif. – March 10th, 2020 - Crown Bioscience today announced the launch of two new liver fibrosis rodent models, allowing more rapid and cost-effective evaluation of the preclinical effects of NASH and anti-fibrotic treatments on acute liver injury, advanced fibrosis, and/or fibrosis reversal.

The two models encompass fibrosis induced by carbon tetrachloride and a new cholesterol-added, choline-deficient fibrosis (CCDF) diet. The launch of these models furthers CrownBio’s commitment to progressing NASH drug development by providing a wider breadth of preclinical platforms.

The new CCDF diet is a modification of the choline-deficient, L-amino acid-defined, high-fat diet (CDAHFD) currently in preclinical use, featuring lower fat composition and added cholesterol. The resulting Wistar rat and C57BL/6 murine models display more severe liver injury than rodents on CDAHFD, with fibrosis observed in only six to nine weeks, and without the significant weight loss commonly observed in conventional chemical and nutritional deficit models.

Carbon tetrachloride induction provides rapid fibrosis models, allowing time and cost savings on preclinical studies compared with overnutrition and nutritional deficit models. Severe fibrosis is observed in as little as four weeks in C57BL/6 and Balb/c murine models, compared with 16 weeks or longer for industry standard overnutrition diets.

“Fibrosis is associated with more severe forms of NASH, so developing new platforms to model this disease aspect can help the patient populations worst affected by this silent disease” said Dr. Jim Wang, Senior Vice President of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease at CrownBio. “These new models, along with other liver disease models including MS-NASH and CCl₄ induced or modified rodent models, as well as NHP models, add to our vision of establishing a market-leading platform of highly translational models to accelerate NASH drug discovery”.

Characterization data on the novel CCDF model induced in the Wistar rat will be presented by CrownBio at the upcoming NASH Summit in Boston. The poster titled: ‘A Cholesterol Added, Choline Deficient Fibrogenic Diet Aggravates Liver Injury and Hepatic Steatosis in Wistar Rats’ will be presented to the NASH scientific community on May 5th 2020.

Later this year, CrownBio will also present data on a new diet-enhanced NHP model of liver steatosis, lipidemia, and insulin resistance, further enhancing the range of models available to NASH drug developers. Such advancements will allow the evaluation of potential therapeutics that reduce liver triglycerides and improve insulin resistance in models closely recapitulating human metabolic disease.

Media Enquiries:
Jody Barbeau
Crown Bioscience Inc.
pr@crownbio.com