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Téa: Hi.
Dr Bass: Wow.
Téa: How are you?
Dr Bass: Oh, this is so nice.
Téa: I just wanted you to come. I wanted to surprise you.
Dr Bass: Oh, this is great. Can I sit here?
Téa: Yes.
Dr Bass: Oh, great.
Téa: I wanted to surprise you.
Dr Bass: You did. I'm so surprised. This is amazing. What are we going to be doing here? This is great.
Téa: I'm [00:00:30] going to be asking you some questions, and I'm going to be interviewing you.
Dr Bass: Oh, wow. Okay.
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Téa: If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Dr Bass: See, I have a hard time with this because there's foods that I love. I probably would say either pizza or French fries.
Téa: Okay. Good job. Who's your favorite superhero? [00:01:00] Batman.
[laughter]
Dr Bass: You knew this.
Téa: I knew.
Dr Bass: You knew this. I like because he's smart, and he has all these gadgets that he creates.
Téa: You're smart.
Dr Bass: It's really cool. Yes. I like the fact that he could—He didn't have a power. He had his mind.
Téa: What is Alagille syndrome in your own words?
Dr Bass: Alagille syndrome is a condition that you're born with, [00:01:30] and it impacts the ability of some parts of your organs to form. Alagille syndrome can cause you to have problems with your liver or with your heart or with your kidneys. One of the things with your liver that it can impact is that it can cause difficulty in getting something that your liver makes called bile. Bile is this yellowish liquid that dissolves fat. When you eat something that [00:02:00] has fat in it, bile is what's breaking it down. That bile backs up in the setting of Alagille syndrome, and that's what causes some of the symptoms of Alagille syndrome.
Téa: How did you know that I had Alagille syndrome?
Dr Bass: When you were a little baby, you had jaundice, meaning you had elevated levels of bilirubin. Your skin looked a little yellow, and your eyes looked a little yellow. [00:02:30] There was a genetic test that was done that demonstrated that you had Alagille syndrome. Then we took care of you and tried to help you through that time, and you've done really well since that time.
Téa: Why do kids like me with Alagille syndrome itch?
Dr Bass: That's exactly it. There's not enough tubes for that bile to flow through, and so it goes into other parts of the body. [00:03:00] You may not even notice that you're itching, but for some people, it can feel like they're wiggly. It can feel like they are just scratching distractedly. They don't even know. This is my example of doing this. It's the bile that's in their bloodstream that's causing that to happen because there's too much of it, and the liver can't put it all down through the bile ducts or the tubes into the intestine.
Téa: What do you tell kids like me [00:03:30] and their families to look for with the itch?
Dr Bass: There's a lot of different aspects. It's important that, as a doctor, I understand that itch can be impacting a lot of patients, because I see you, and I love seeing you when I see you. I see you for 30 to 60 minutes a couple of times a year, and so I get a really [00:04:00] small snapshot of your life. If I'm not asking, how are you sleeping? How's it going in school? Can you pay attention?
Can you sit at the dinner table and eat? What happens when you're watching TV? Are you paying attention, or are you potentially itching and distracted by it? It's important to me to make sure that I'm asking those questions that might be impacting you. [00:04:30] When you say what's important for you, it's to make sure that you communicate to me what's your life like, what is your daily life like, and how we can help understand that because that helps us understand how we can treat this.
Téa: Does your other patients feel like they're grasping their arm and go itch?
Dr Bass: I don't know that I've heard that exact [00:05:00] description. Things that I look for is sometimes I come in the room and I'm talking to mom, but I'm looking at you. I want to see what you're doing when you're just sitting there just listening. I see what the patients are doing and trying to make an observation of what's going on. It's one of the ways I can rate how kids are itching or if kids are scratching [00:05:30] and watching what they're doing as they're going.
Téa: Why did you decide that LIVMARLI was right for me?
Dr Bass: I was very ready to give you LIVMARLI as soon as I saw the FDA approval for it. I knew that you were doing okay. We had you on medicine that was keeping you okay, but I also knew that you weren't perfect. I knew that you would itch a lot. I knew that you would [00:06:00] sometimes have scratches on you when I would see you in the office. The medicines that we were using didn't seem to be enough to take away your itch. My hope was that I could use LIVMARLI to improve that symptom for you.
Téa: How does LIVMARLI work?
Dr Bass: What LIVMARLI does is it blocks the absorption of bile acids in the lower part of the intestine. When your liver—I almost like to think of this. Have you ever been to a water park?
Téa: Yes.
Dr Bass: Okay. The way I like to think about this. [00:06:30] The bile is all going down this big water slide. What do you do at the end of a big water slide?
Téa: You go in the water.
Dr Bass: You go in the water. Then what do you do right after that? You get up and you want to go right back up the water slide, right?
Téa: Yes.
Dr Bass: That's really what's happening with all the bile. All the bile goes through, and then it goes right back up to the liver. If there's not enough tubes for that bile to flow, then that bile goes into the rest of the body. What LIVMARLI does is it blocks the ability of that [00:07:00] bile to get out of the water and go back up to the slide. It allows it to leave the body. That's how it works.
Téa: How do kids like me know if LIVMARLI is working?
Dr Bass: For you, you should hope that you feel less itching. You should hope that you should sleep better. You should hope that you have less irritation and agitation. [00:07:30] Sometimes kids have some jaundice, and hopefully that should go away too. For me, I can measure the bile in your blood. One of the things that I've done, as we've done some of the blood tests, and I know you don't like blood tests. As we've done that, we've measured and we found that your bile acids, which were high, are much lower now on the LIVMARLI. That improved things.
Certainly, there are some side effects that can occur with LIVMARLI. As we talked [00:08:00] about, when I talked about blocking the absorption of the intestine in the bile, and we get that bile out of your body. How does stuff get out of your body? One of two different ways. You either go pee or you go poop. It goes out through your poop. Sometimes people have to go to the bathroom and go poop more. They might have some diarrhea. If they feel like they have to go poop, [00:08:30] sometimes they feel like that they have a little bit of pain. Sometimes they can sometimes even have a little bit of nausea and throw up. In reality, my experience has been that people have tolerated it really well so far.
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Téa: When I went in, when I was younger, I used to be very scared. Since I got older, I was so happy that I got to [00:09:00] see you more and more often. That's the memories I have of you.
Dr Bass: I remember—Now, actually, it's really nice to see you grow up because at one point, you were happy to see me. Then I would examine you and you wouldn't like that I was doing anything. Now, you actually are very informed about what's going on with your body. You're asking questions and you're [00:09:30] taking some ownership of that. That's really going to be useful for you, for your health going forward. That's a really good habit and thing to have for you.
Téa: That's amazing.
Dr Bass: I always look forward to seeing you guys. As a doctor, I don't do this for thank yous. I do it because I like doing it. When I get thank yous and appreciation from families, it's [00:10:00] really a wonderful thing, and it keeps me going. You and your family, your mom and your grandpa, you always show appreciation.
Téa: You have made me happy for my whole life. You always make me happy. You are just the best doctor I could ever have.
Dr Bass: Oh, thank you.
Téa: I'm very, very glad you came here today.
Dr Bass: I am so glad I came here. I'm so glad that [00:10:30] we could sit and talk like this. This has really been wonderful.
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Dr Bass: First off, what is your favorite sport or activity outside of school?
Téa: Gym.
Dr Bass: Gym?
Téa: Yes.
Dr Bass: What do you like to do in gym best?
Téa: I like to do cartwheels. I like to do the splits. I like to run, and [00:11:00] I like to exercise.
Dr Bass: Excellent. Now, do you do cartwheels or do you do roundoffs? Because I learned that there was a difference.
Téa: Yes, roundoffs.
Dr Bass: Roundoffs? Excellent. When you had the itch, what did it feel like to you? How did you feel it inside?
Téa: It felt really bad. It felt like something was in my body. When I was younger, I didn't know any of this stuff. Now, since I'm getting older, I know what's in my body, and LIVMARLI [00:11:30] is helping.
Dr Bass: That's wonderful. Did you have certain times of day, like morning, it was worse? Right before you went to bed, it was worse? Did you have anything like that?
Téa: I think night was the worst.
Dr Bass: Nighttime was the worst? Okay. This is actually a really good question. I've never asked you this before. How would you describe Alagille syndrome to your friends?
Téa: I would describe that I have Alagille [00:12:00] syndrome, and sometimes they would ask me, like, "What is that?" It's something that makes you itch a lot, and you can't stop. Even though you're trying to stop, it's not working. Now that I'm taking LIVMARLI, it's helping, and you guys don't see me itching more. You just see me itching less.
Dr Bass: That's good. That's a good description. I like the description. What [00:12:30] advice would you give other kids with Alagille syndrome?
Téa: I would say to ask your doctor if you can have LIVMARLI like me.
Dr Bass: Okay. That's great. One of the other things that I was curious about is, would you tell other kids to say, don't be afraid to talk about the itch?
Téa: Do not be afraid. You tell anybody.
Dr Bass: Right, because people don't know that they should tell people. We want other kids to know that they can talk about what they're feeling.
Téa: Yes. [00:13:00] Anybody you know, you immediately tell. It's better than just keeping it away.
Dr Bass: Excellent. Those are all the questions I have for you.
Téa: I have a special guest coming named Mom.
Dr Bass: Really?
Téa: Yes.
Dr Bass: Oh, wow. I'd love to see her.
Téa: Yes, she's coming.
Michelle: Hi. Hi, Dr. Bass. It's so good to see you, Dr. Bass. I definitely wanted to just thank you.
Téa: [00:13:30] From everything?
Michelle: I'm sorry. Not only are you our doctor, but you're just such an amazing person. You saved her. You saved me. I would hope everybody has relationships with their doctors as we do with you. It was hard at first. We couldn't find a doctor that was just [00:14:00] a right fit. You're our third doctor that we saw. I would never change you. You speak to me like a human. Sometimes the scientific words get out of hand. You never do that to me. You talk to me. You draw me diagrams. We appreciate that.
You hold such a special place in all of our family's hearts in everything that you have done for us. Nothing in the world [00:14:30] can ever repay what you have done for Téa mentally, physically, and for all of us. Téa loves coming to see you. A lot of kids are scared of their doctor. They don't really talk to them. No. I've seen you dance in the room with her, and you make her laugh, and your jokes are funny. [laughs]
She talks about you all the time. She loves to come see you, and [00:15:00] that's huge. It's so heartfelt when she tells everybody and she's like, "I'm want to go see Dr. Bass. He's my favorite." It means a lot as a parent for her to be—not just you, the whole team. She's so excited to see your team and your nurses. She knows that there's a special place for her there. The fact that she's excited to come there is all I can ever ask for and I can't thank you enough.
Dr Bass: [00:15:30] For me this is why I do what I do. It's to see her grow up. It's to have the ability to see her really sick as a baby and to get her better and to see her like this today is the biggest reason that I do what I do. To have a relationship with you guys. It's not just you, it's the entire family. It's all Team Téa, [00:16:00] and it's been just amazing to work with you. Then the advocacy to be like, we know there's something better out there for her, we know we can do this, we know we're watching for this, and being able to try and find the next thing to help her get better, which is how we got to today with this drug, is that we're working together to do it for her.
Michelle: I agree.
Dr Bass: Of course, [00:16:30] the most important thing is her.
Michelle: Always.
Téa: Well, would you like some tea?
Dr Bass: I would like some tea.
Michelle: Yes.
Téa: Here's your tea. Here's your coffee, and here's my tea.
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Michelle: Are we going to cheers?
Téa: Yes. Let's do it.
All: Cheers.
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Narrator:
INDICATION
LIVMARLI (maralixibat) oral solution and tablets are a prescription medicine used to treat [00:17:00] cholestatic pruritus (itch) in patients who are 3 months of age and older with Alagille syndrome.
It is not known if LIVMARLI is safe and effective in children with Alagille syndrome who are under 3 months of age. It is not known if LIVMARLI is safe and effective in adults who are 65 years of age and older.
IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION
What are the possible side effects of LIVMARLI (maralixibat) oral solution and tablets?
LIVMARLI can cause serious side effects, including:
Liver injury. Changes in [00:17:30] certain liver tests are common in patients but may worsen during treatment with LIVMARLI. These changes may be a sign of liver injury and can be serious. Your health care provider should do blood tests and physical exams before starting and during treatment to check your liver function. Tell your health care provider right away if you get any signs or symptoms of liver problems, including:
- nausea or vomiting
- your skin or the white part of your eye turns yellow
- dark or brown urine
- pain on the right side of your stomach (abdomen)
- fullness, bloating, or fluid in your stomach area [00:18:00] (ascites)
- loss of appetite
- bleeding or bruising more easily than normal, including vomiting blood
Stomach and intestinal (gastrointestinal) problems. LIVMARLI can cause stomach and intestinal problems, including diarrhea and stomach pain during treatment. Diarrhea can also cause the loss of too much body fluid (severe dehydration). Your health care provider may advise you to monitor for new or worsening stomach problems, including stomach pain, diarrhea, blood in your stool, or vomiting. [00:18:30] Tell your health care provider right away if you have any new or worsening signs or symptoms of stomach and intestinal problems, including:
- diarrhea
- more frequent bowel movements than usual
- stools that are black, tarry, or sticky, or have blood or mucous
- severe stomach-area pain or tenderness
- vomiting
- urinating less often than usual
- dizziness
- headache
- A condition called Fat-Soluble Vitamin (FSV) Deficiency caused by low levels of certain vitamins (vitamin A, D, E, and [00:19:00] K) stored in body fat. FSV deficiency is common in patients with Alagille syndrome but may worsen during treatment. Your health care provider should do blood tests before starting and during treatment, and may monitor for bone fractures and bleeding, which are common side effects.
Tell your health care provider about all medicines that you take, as LIVMARLI may interact with other medicines. If you take a medicine that lowers cholesterol by binding bile acids, such as cholestyramine, colesevelam, or colestipol, take LIVMARLI at least 4 hours before [00:19:30] or 4 hours after you take that medicine.
Your health care provider may change your dose, or temporarily or permanently stop treatment if you have certain side effects.
LIVMARLI is available in oral solution and tablet formulations. LIVMARLI is taken by mouth, 1 time each day, 30 minutes before a meal in the morning. For the oral solution, be sure to use the provided oral dosing dispenser to accurately measure the dose of medicine.
These are not all of the possible side effects of LIVMARLI. For more information, ask your health care [00:20:00] provider or pharmacist. Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to the FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.
Please see full Prescribing Information, including Patient Information and Instructions for Use, for LIVMARLI at LIVMARLI.com.
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