Novo Nordisk will present 12 abstracts at The Liver Meeting in Denver, Nov. 5-9, including new semaglutide analyses and research on investigational efruxifermin. The agenda also includes a routine-care study comparing outcomes among people with MASH who began semaglutide 2.4 mg or resmetirom.
One presentation draws on the phase 3 ESSENCE trial, which is testing semaglutide in adults with MASH and moderate-to-advanced liver fibrosis. Its post-hoc analysis covered 106 participants with a baseline BMI below 27 kg/m² from the 800 people included in the trial’s week-72 interim analysis. The abstract reported semaglutide-versus-placebo treatment estimates favoring semaglutide for ALT, AST, the Enhanced Liver Fibrosis score and PRO-C3. The liver-stiffness estimate was less conclusive: its confidence interval included 1.
“MASH often goes unrecognized and undiagnosed, allowing liver damage to progress over time. Earlier diagnosis and treatment are needed,” Martin Holst Lange, Novo’s chief scientific officer and executive vice president of Research & Development, said in the announcement.
The PLATINUM-Truveta analysis used medical records from 30 U.S. health systems between June 2021 and March 2026. It included 2,873 adults who started semaglutide 2.4 mg and 2,285 who started resmetirom, and assessed liver enzymes, weight and cardiometabolic markers at three and six months. The study excluded people with cirrhosis or other chronic liver diseases and required treatment persistence at follow-up.
BariatricPal said adjusted six-month ALT estimates fell from 53 to 39 U/L with semaglutide and from 53 to 42 U/L with resmetirom. It reported declines of 27% and 21%, respectively, from its review of the abstract and figure.
The comparison is observational, so it cannot establish that one treatment caused better results. Novo also cautioned that such analyses may be affected by unmeasured confounding, limited follow-up and coding inaccuracies.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted accelerated approval to both Wegovy and resmetirom for noncirrhotic MASH or NASH with moderate-to-advanced fibrosis. The approvals rely on surrogate outcomes and require confirmatory trials to verify clinical benefit.
