Explore the Agenda
A Year in Review: Exploring the Milestone Year for IPF to Set the Scene for Current Pulmonary Fibrosis Drug Development
7:10 am Check-In, Coffee & Light Breakfast
8:10 am Chairs Opening Remarks
8:15 am Fireside Chat: Understanding the Lived Experience of IPF Directly from the Patient
As IPF drug development grows more complex, it’s important to pause and reflect on why we do what we do. This session brings the conversation back to what matters most, grounding scientific and clinical discussions in real patient impact, and ensuring progress across the field remains both meaningful and measurable.
8:30 am Unpacking Phase 3 Data from TETON 1 & TETON 2: Evaluating Nebulized Treprostinil as a Potential Disease-Modifying Therapy for IPF
- Presenting results from the Phase 3 TETON clinical program investigating nebulized treprostinil in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, including its impact on decline in forced vital capacity and overall disease progression
- Examining the biological and clinical rationale for targeting the prostacyclin pathway in fibrotic lung disease, building on signals observed in patients with IPF in the INCREASE study
- Discussing the implications of the TETON findings for the future treatment paradigm in IPF, including the role inhaled therapies may play alongside existing antifibrotics and in combination strategies
9:00 am Session Reserved for ThermoFisher Scientific
- Presenting clinical insights from the Phase 3 ALOFT-IPF trial evaluating admilparant (BMS-986278), an oral lysophosphatidic acid receptor-1 (LPA1) antagonist, including its effect on lung function decline and disease progression in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
- Exploring the biological rationale for targeting LPA1 signaling in pulmonary fibrosis, including its role in fibroblast recruitment, activation, and extracellular matrix deposition that drives progressive lung scarring
- Discussing how emerging Phase 3 results may shape the evolving treatment landscape in IPF, including positioning alongside existing antifibrotics and implications for future combination therapy strategies
9:30 am Evaluating Admilparant in the ALOFT-IPF Program: Translating the LPA1 Pathway into Clinical Potential
- Exploring the biological rationale for targeting the lysophosphatidic acid receptor-1 (LPA1) pathway in pulmonary fibrosis, including its role in fibroblast recruitment, activation, and extracellular matrix deposition driving disease progression
- Discussing the clinical development of admilparant (BMS-986278) as a first-in class oral LPA1 antagonist, and what differentiates this approach within the current antifibrotic landscape
- Sharing perspectives on the anticipated impact of ongoing Phase 3 programs, including how LPA1 inhibition could shape future treatment paradigms and combination strategies in IPF
10:00 am Panel Discussion: A Year in Review: Charting the Evolving IPF Landscape & Implications for Drug Development
The past year has been transformative for IPF, with new therapies, emerging mechanisms, and evolving patient management strategies reshaping the landscape. This panel will provide a strategic, forward-looking overview of how the field has progressed and what the next 12-18 months may hold. Panellists will discuss the expanding pathophysiology of IPF, emerging classifications of therapies, and implications for patient care, clinical development strategy, and communication with stakeholders.
Key Discussion Points:
- How newly approved therapies and emerging candidates are expected to influence IPF treatment and clinical and research priorities in the next 12–18 months.
- Exploring the practical impact of emerging terminology, anti-fibrotic, anti-inflammatory, de-differentiation, fibrolysis, and how these distinctions may shape patient and clinician preferences
- Approaches for ordering, timing, and combining therapies in a multi-drug era, balancing efficacy, safety, and operational feasibility.
- Identifying opportunities, challenges, and areas for collaboration to ensure trials and programs remain aligned with evolving clinical practice
10:30 am Speed Networking
This informal session provides the perfect opportunity to connect with the industry frontrunners and key opinion leaders in the pulmonary fibrosis field. Establish meaningful connections to build upon for the rest of the conference and gain exclusive first-hand insights into the latest research and developments driving progression in the pulmonary fibrosis field.
11:15 am Morning Break
Track 1: Emerging Biology & Early Translation
Understanding the Biological Drivers of IPF for Novel Targets with Therapeutic Benefit
11:30 am Decoding Early Pulmonary Fibrosis by Examining the Cellular & Molecular Drivers of Disease Initiation
- Exploring the key cell populations and signaling pathways that drive the onset of pulmonary fibrosis in humans
- Identifying the molecular drivers, including transcriptional and epigenetic programs, that initiate fibrotic remodeling
- Detailing how understanding early disease mechanisms can inform biomarker discovery, patient stratification, and development of targeted interventions
12:00 pm Diving into Mechanobiology in IPF: Exploring the Targeting of Tissue Mechanics to Halt Fibrosis Progression
- Examine how altered extracellular matrix stiffness and fibroblast mechanotransduction drive IPF pathogenesis
- Highlight mechanotherapeutic strategies designed to normalize aberrant cellular mechano-signaling and disrupt fibrotic feedback loops
- Discuss translational implications for developing therapies that not only slow disease but restore lung tissue function and improve patient outcomes.
12:30 pm Dissecting Fibrosis: Examining Cellular Drivers & Uncovering Opportunities for Targeting Fibrosis
- Understanding initiation from insights from preclinical models and single-cell analyses that reveal how epithelial injury, immune cells, and fibroblasts create early fibrotic niches, highlighting actionable targets for early intervention
- Mapping progression and the different cell types that orchestrate extracellular matrix deposition and tissue stiffening, identifying druggable pathways and biomarkers to guide therapeutic development
- Exploring preclinical studies showing fibrosis can regress under certain conditions, with severity- and time-dependent constraints, offering translational opportunities for early markers of reversal to inform clinical endpoints
Track 2: Late Translation, Clinical & Regulatory
Adapting Clinical Development Strategies to an Evolving Landscape with Changing SOC
11:30 am Panel Discussion: Business as Usual or Back to the Drawing Board? Rethinking IPF Trial Design in a Three Antifibrotic Era
- Has the Approval of New Antifibrotics Fundamentally Changed IPF Trial Design? Exploring whether the introduction of additional approved therapies requires a paradigm shift toward combination trials and active comparators, or whether traditional development approaches remain valid
- Managing Background Therapies in an Evolving Standard of Care Debating strategies for incorporating monotherapy, prior antifibrotic exposure, and real-world combination regimens without compromising interpretability or feasibility of clinical trials.
- Lessons from Other Crowded Therapeutic Areas Considering how fields such as inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriasis have continued drug development despite multiple approved therapies, and whether ILD should follow a similar path.
- Designing Future Trials as the Pipeline Expands Anticipating how additional approvals may influence eligibility criteria, stratification strategies, and expectations for head-to-head or combination studies.
12:00 pm Adapting IPF Clinical Trials in a Changing Treatment Landscape: Incorporating New Standards of Care Without Compromising Study Integrity
- Exploring how Cumberland amended its IPF trial to allow newly approved therapies as background treatment, ensuring patients can access the latest options while maintaining scientific rigor in evaluating investigational therapies
- Understanding how patient demand for newly approved drugs can influence recruitment, retention, and protocol design, and how proactive site engagement and investigator feedback informed trial modifications
- Lessons from patient experiences with antifibrotics and newer therapies, highlighting how tolerability challenges can influence treatment decisions, trial participation, and the interpretation of clinical outcomes
12:15 pm Audience Discussion: Evolving Protocols in Real Time – How Are You Responding to a Changing Standard of Care?
- Are you actively adapting trial protocols to incorporate newly approved therapies, or maintaining original designs to preserve data integrity?
- How are sponsor teams responding to pressure from investigators and patients to allow background therapies?
- Looking ahead to Phase III, will flexible, adaptive protocols become the norm, or is there still a place for tightly controlled study designs?
12:30 pm Clinician Scientist’s Perspective – Interpreting the Latest IPF Clinical Trial Readouts: What Do They Mean for Patients & the Future of Drug Development?
- Breaking down recent Phase II/III trial outcomes and approvals through a clinician’s lens, examining how efficacy signals, safety profiles, and real-world tolerability translate into meaningful benefit for patients in routine practice
- Understanding what these results reveal about mechanisms that are (and aren’t) working, and how emerging data are reshaping expectations around endpoints, disease modification, and what constitutes clinically meaningful improvement in IPF
- Looking ahead to the next generation of trials, exploring how recent successes and failures should inform study design, patient selection, combination strategies, and the evolving role of standard-of-care in future development programs
1:00 pm Objective Cough Monitoring in IPF/ILD: Assessing Symptomatic Treatment Benefit
- Cough is a high-burden but inconsistently captured symptom in IPF/ILD. Patient-reported measures and clinical assessments don’t fully capture the day-to-day impact and variability of cough
- C-mo provides continuous, objective cough monitoring in patients’ everyday environments. This passive biosensor based measurement can complement established endpoints with a quantifiable respiratory symptom signal
- C-mo is a validated, CE-marked platform built for clinical research. It supports reliable cough data collection, with the potential to strengthen symptomatic-efficacy evidence and reduce reliance on burdensome manual reporting
1:10 pm Lunch Break
Track 1: Emerging Biology & Early Translation
Designing Robust Preclinical Packages for Predictive Tools for Drug Development Providing Translational Confidence
2:00 pm From Immune Biology to Early Clinical Signal: Building a Robust Preclinical & Translational Package for Novel IPF Therapies
- Unpacking the immunological drivers of fibrosis, including the role of invariant Natural Killer T (iNKT) cells in orchestrating epithelial injury, fibroblast activation, and chronic inflammatory signaling, and how targeting early immune regulators may shift disease trajectory beyond traditional antifibrotic approaches
- Designing a preclinical evaluation framework that moves beyond single models, integrating human-relevant systems (e.g., PCLS, ex vivo tissue), molecular readouts, and multi omic approaches to demonstrate true disease modification, not just attenuation of fibrosis
- Linking mechanism to translation through converging datasets, combining gene expression, circulating biomarkers, and immune phenotyping to build confidence in target engagement, biological relevance, and likelihood of clinical success prior to entering the clinic
2:30 pm Going Upstream in Fibrosis: PMG1015, a First-in-Class Disease-Modifying Anti-Amphiregulin (AREG) Antibody for IPF
- AREG is a causal, upstream, epithelial-derived driver of fibrogenesis
- PMG1015 exhibited a well-tolerated safety profile with no dose limiting toxicities across three completed clinical studies
- In IPF, PMG1015 showed FVC stabilization and structural improvement on AI-quantified HRCT, supporting advancement into a global 52-week study
3:00 pm A Translational Human-Centric Macrophage Model to Enhance Myeloid Target Discovery and Drug Development in Fibrosis
- Leveraging patient-derived single-cell signatures of fibrosis associated macrophages to define translational benchmarks for in vitro macrophage models
- Development of high-throughput, multi-omic perturbation platforms to identify polarization stimuli that recapitulate fibrosis-relevant macrophage phenotypes
- Integrating macrophage-fibroblast co-culture systems as a preclinical mechanistic tool to capture disease-relevant functional crosstalk and fibrogenic immune-stromal interactions
3:30 pm Panel Discussion & Audience Discussion: Moving Beyond Bleomycin to Building a Robust Preclinical Evaluation Framework for Pulmonary Fibrosis Drug Development
For decades, the bleomycin model has served as the primary tool for evaluating antifibrotic candidates in pulmonary fibrosis research. Yet as the field has matured, it has become increasingly clear that reliance on a single preclinical model is insufficient to capture the biological complexity, chronic progression, and therapeutic responses observed in human disease.
Key Discussion Points:
- The strengths and limitations of traditional models, including bleomycin, and how they fit within a broader preclinical evaluation strategy
- How emerging platforms such as human lung tissue models, organoids, and PCLS are being used to complement in vivo studies and improve translational relevance
- Detecting safety signals and drug–drug interactions early in development to better inform clinical trial design and regulatory discussions
Track 2: Late Translation, Clinical & Regulatory
Advancing Biomarkers in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis to Predict Disease Progression, Stratify Patients & Improve Trial Success
2:00 pm Insights from the ISABELA Trials and the Path Toward Risk Stratification & Prognostic Biomarkers in IPF
- Reviewing analyses from the ISABELA Phase 3 trials demonstrating how circulating biomarkers such as MMP-7 and CCL18 are associated with disease progression and mortality in IPF
- Understanding how large clinical datasets enable validation of prognostic biomarkers and support the development of composite risk models to stratify patients by disease trajectory
- Discussing how these insights may support patient enrichment strategies and more efficient trial design as the IPF therapeutic pipeline expands
2:30 pm Measuring Lung Stiffness with Oscillometry
- Pulmonary fibrosis is characterized by increased lung stiffness, increasing work of breathing
- Limitations of traditional spirometry in assessing this aspect of lung function
- Latest evidence on Oscillometry in ILD and its potential to better predict disease progression
3:00 pm Roundtable Discussion: Driving Precision in IPF: How Can Biomarker Strategies Enable the Next Generation of Therapies?
Join this interactive roundtable to explore how the field can move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach and embed precision medicine into IPF drug development.
Discussion Points:
- How are we currently defining and addressing biological and clinical heterogeneity in IPF, and where are the gaps?
- What role can blood-based, molecular, and digital biomarkers play in identifying responders and reducing -clinical trial variability?
- How can biomarker strategies be more effectively integrated across the pipeline, from early discovery through to late-stage development?
- What are the key barriers to implementing precision approaches in IPF today, and how can the field overcome them?
3:30 pm Why Cough Counts: Cough as an Endpoint in Pulmonary Fibrosis Research
- Exploring how cough is measured in clinical research and trials, including objective and subjective methods and the relationship between them
- Reviewing case studies using objective cough measurement as an endpoint in IPF and cystic fibrosis research
- Discussing latest advancements in automated cough monitoring that make cough research more feasible across respiratory diseases
4:00 pm Afternoon Break & Poster Session
Immerse yourself in an engaging and relaxed session encouraging meaningful conversations and discussions. Explore a range of exciting poster presentations and showcase your own research and developments across the Pulmonary Fibrosis landscape Don’t miss out on the chance to connect, learn, and present. Get ready to be impressed!
The Current State of Play in IPF Drug Development in 2026
This afternoon session provides a structured, comparative overview of the current IPF pipeline. Each session will examine a leading programme through the lens of:
MoA & Scientific Rationale | Clinical Strategy & Trial Design | Stage of Development & Emerging Data
5:00 pm From Images to Insight: Qureight’s AI-Powered Platform for Precision Clinical Trials
- Introducing Qureight’s end-to-end imaging ecosystem spanning imaging CRO services, central reads and AI-powered quantitative biomarkers
- Important lessons from recent IPF and PPF studies demonstrating how imaging is improving patient selection, endpoint assessment and trial efficiency
- How integrated imaging and biomarker strategies are shaping the next generation of antifibrotic clinical trials
- Why fibrosis burden is the principal structural imaging biomarker for antifibrotic drug development and the leading candidate imaging endpoint
5:00 pm Nintedanib DPI (MNKD-201): Inhaled Delivery Innovation in IPF
- Exploring the scientific basis for dry powder inhalation of nintedanib and how targeted pulmonary delivery aims to maximize local exposure while potentially improving tolerability and expanding therapeutic window relative to oral antifibrotics
- Providing an update on the Phase 2 INFLO-2 study design and interim findings, including study endpoints, safety/tolerability observations, lung function trajectories, and how trial learnings are shaping expectations for inhaled antifibrotic therapy
- Considering what an efficacious inhaled antifibrotic means for the IPF treatment paradigm, including potential effects on standard of care sequencing, combination approaches with oral therapies, patient preference/adherence, and how delivery innovation may inform future antifibrotic development strategies
5:30 pm An Update into Rentosertib in IPF: Scaling AI-Discovered Therapies into Late-Stage Development
- Revisiting TNIK inhibition as a therapeutic strategy in IPF and reflecting on how AI-enabled discovery has progressed from candidate identification to multi-program clinical advancement
- Updates on Phase 2b progression in the US, Phase 3 initiation in China, and the strategic considerations behind multinational late-stage expansion
- Advancing an inhaled IPF programme into Phase 1 and discussing how formulation strategy, delivery route, and lifecycle planning may shape future positioning in an increasingly competitive IPF landscape
6:00 pm Introducing Contineum Therapeutic’s PIPE-791 a Validated LPA1R Antagonist in IPF
- Targeting the lysophosphatidic acid 1 receptor (LPA1R), a clinically validated driver of f ibrosis, to disrupt fibroblast recruitment, vascular leak, and pro-fibrotic signalling in IPF
- Reviewing preclinical findings and early clinical data supporting PIPE-791, including differentiation strategy within the LPA1R class and considerations for dose, safety, and patient selection
- Evaluating whether next-generation LPA1R antagonism can overcome historical development challenges and how this programme may fit within combination strategies and evolving standards of care