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Compound Evidence InstituteEvidence synthesis · established 2023Graded assessments of compounds, trials, methods and supply
Document set current to 30 July 2026
Trial abstract

ESSENCE — structured trial abstract

ESSENCE — Semaglutide in mash: randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled

Document identifier
CEI-TR-0013
Series
Trial abstract
Version
2.2
Published
26 Jan 2025
Last reviewed
26 May 2025
Next review
26 May 2027
Identifier
10.71829/cei.trial.13
Certainty
Moderate
Cycle
2025 Q1
Phase
Phase 3
Status
Reported

§1Structured abstract

§1.1Objective

To evaluate Semaglutide in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, against the comparator specified in §2, with the primary endpoint stated below.

§1.2Design

Design
Randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group
Masking
Double-blind (participant, investigator and sponsor)
Phase
Phase 3
Randomised participants
1,197
Duration of the primary analysis period
72 weeks for part 1
Sponsor class
Manufacturer-sponsored
Registry identifier
not reproduced — see the note in §1.5

§1.3Primary endpoint

Resolution of steatohepatitis without worsening of fibrosis, and improvement in fibrosis without worsening of steatohepatitis, on paired biopsy at week 72

§1.4Principal result

Resolution in 62.9 % versus 34.3 % with placebo; difference 28.7 percentage points (95 % CI 21.1 to 36.2).[1]

Part 1 of a two-part trial. The clinical-outcome part had not reported at the assessment date and the Institute grades histological improvement as a surrogate.

§1.5Provenance of this abstract

Table 1. Field-by-field provenance. The Institute records which fields are extracted from a source and which are its own reconstruction, so that a reader can tell the two apart without leaving the page.

FieldProvenanceNote
Design, phase, duration, primary endpointExtractedReproduced from the published report or the registry record.
Randomised participantsExtractedReproduced as published.
Principal resultExtractedReproduced as published, with the confidence interval where the Institute holds it.
Centres, countries and baseline characteristicsReconstructedDerived by the Institute from the design class and the randomised total. Presented in §2 as an illustrative operational profile and marked as such. These figures are not published characteristics of this trial.
Certainty assessmentInstitute judgementThe Institute’s own domain-by-domain assessment, with reasoning recorded against each domain in §4.
Registry identifierNot heldThe Institute does not reproduce a registry identifier it has not verified and never constructs one. Documents are referenced by the Institute’s own identifier.

References cited on this page

References are numbered in order of first citation in this document. Each superscript in the text links to its entry below.

  1. Sanyal AJ, Newsome PN, Kliers I, Østergaard LH, Long MT, Kjær MS, Cali AMG, Bugianesi E, Rinella ME, Roden M, Ratziu V. Phase 3 trial of semaglutide in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis. New England Journal of Medicine 2025;392(21):2089–2099. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2413258

Identifiers are reproduced only where the Institute holds them. Where a digital object identifier or PubMed identifier is not shown, the Institute has recorded the journal and year and has not constructed an identifier.

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