Current Drug Development Pipeline for MASLD and MASH: Focusing on Cardiovascular Comorbidities

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is characterized by an exceptionally high global prevalence that is projected to continue rising in the near future. MASLD is strongly associated with a spectrum of cardiometabolic risk factors, and may itself, in turn, contribute to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. This interconnection warrants the development of integrated treatment strategies targeting shared pathophysiological processes and addressing both hepatic, metabolic, and cardiovascular outcomes. In this work, we review the modern MASLD clinical development pipeline and highlight the most prominent drug candidates with known or purported cardiovascular benefits, discussing mechanistic links and supporting evidence ranging from preclinical experiments to real-world data. Although the drug development pipeline is extensive and diverse, evidence supporting cardiovascular benefits for most candidate molecules remains limited. Both of the FDA-approved therapies, resmetirom and semaglutide, have been found to significantly reduce the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events as well as cardiovascular and all-cause mortality in patients with MASH. In addition, significant improvements were observed in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction treated with semaglutide, highlighting incretin mimetics as a promising class for managing cardiovascular disease concomitant with MASLD/MASH. Other investigational compounds, targeting the farnesoid X receptor, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors, de novo lipogenesis enzymes, and fibroblast growth factors, have demonstrated improvements in blood lipid spectrum and glycemic control; however, their clinical effectiveness in patients at cardiovascular risk has yet to be established.