The Inherent Value of Treating Metabolic Dysfunction–Associated Steatohepatitis

The year 2024 was a landmark for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH).The US Food and Drug Administration approved the first MASH-specific drug (resmetirom), 1 and the United Nations began preparations for its 2025 General Assembly High-Level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs), a critical global forum where world leaders, policymakers, and health experts will convene to address the growing burden of NCDs.Although the World Health Organization only recognizes cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, and mental illness as the leading causes of death, morbidity, and disability globally, this is poised to change given the high and growing prevalence of metabolic dysfunctionassociated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) 2 and MASH.An important consideration in addressing MASH is how to expand treatment access, which includes understanding the cost-effectiveness of resmetirom, the only approved treatment for MASH with fibrosis stages F2 or F3.The article by Le et al 3 presents a modeling study that aimed to estimate the cost-effectiveness of resmetirom in a patient population (N = 200 000) that reflected the phase 3 MAESTRO-NASH trial population. 4In MAESTRO-NASH, all patients received nutrition and exercise counseling as part of the standard of care (SoC), and with the same assumptions