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Enzo Biochem Awarded $1 Million Grant To Fund Clinical Trial Of Liver Disease Treatment

13 Jan 2005 - Enzo Biochem, Inc. announced that it has received a $1 million grant from the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD) to fund a clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of the Company's new immunomodulatory agent EGS21 in the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) or fatty liver disease.
 
The grant was awarded following the successful completion of numerous preclinical animal model studies and a recently completed Phase I safety study of EGS21 in human subjects, the results of which indicated its safe use. The clinical trial is expected to begin during the next quarter and will be conducted at Hadassah-Hebrew University Hospital in Jerusalem, Israel.
 
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is one of the most common causes of liver disease (pathology) in the United States. NASH is one stage in a disease spectrum that ranges from simple fatty liver or steatosis to steatohepatitis, advanced fibrosis, and end-stage cirrhosis. It is estimated that approximately 8.6 million obese adult Americans may have NASH and that another 30.1 million may have the milder form of fatty liver.