Could Intercept Pharmaceuticals Be a Millionaire-Maker Stock?
Intercept Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ICPT) is like a lot of biopharmaceutical stocks: It's not making money, but all it takes is one major drug to turn things around.
Intercept, founded in 2002 and headquartered in New York City, focuses on the treatment of progressive non-viral liver diseases. It may have a blockbuster drug in Ocaliva (obeticholic acid), which is a once-daily pill currently used to treat primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), a disease caused by damage to the liver's bile ducts. PBC is relatively rare -- 65 of every 100,000 women and 10 of every 100,000 men in the U.S. have the disease, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).
However, Ocaliva is also being looked at to treat nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a type of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. According to the NIDDK, there is no drug that has yet been approved to treat NASH; for the most part, physicians treat it by asking patients to lose weight to reduce body fat and diminish symptoms.
Source Fool.com
