While preclinical development of potential anti-fibrotics is far advanced, with numerous
pharmacological targets and promising agents, almost none has entered clinical validation.
Reasons are manifold, including the usually slow progression of liver fibrosis, requiring high
numbers of well-stratified patients undergoing long-term treatment when conventional liver
biopsy based parameters or hard liver-related endpoints are used. Importantly, there is a
notorious lack of sensitive and specific surrogate markers or imaging technologies for liver …