Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, West Conshohocken, has experienced a rapid rise in its stock price and market capitalization, which at the start of the week was at $4.4 billion.

In the past year, the company’s stock has soared from $15.50 a share to more than $300, hitting a 52-week high of $325.98 last month. It was trading at $286 at the start of this week., writes John George at bizjournals.com.

Fueling the growth is the company’s successful results from midstage clinical testing of its new method for treating nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, a liver disease that afflicts 20 million people in the United States.

“We were flying under the radar before,” said Paul Friedman, Madrigal’s CEO. “Now we are a known entity even though we are small because NASH is such a big area right now.”

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