Explore the Agenda
A Year in Review: Exploring the Milestone Year for IPF to Set the Scene for Current Pulmonary Fibrosis Drug Development
8:00 am Chairs Opening Remarks – Reviewing the Last 12 Months
8:15 am Fireside Chat: Understanding the Lived Experience of IPF Directly from the Patient
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 Targeting the LPA1 Pathway in IPF: Phase 3 Insights from the ALOFT-IPF Program Evaluating Admilparant
- 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 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
10:00 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.
10:45 am Morning Break
Track 1: Emerging Biology & Early Translation
Understanding the Biological Drivers of IPF for Novel Targets with Therapeutic Benefit
11:00 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
11:30 am 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.
12:00 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
11:00 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.
11:30 am 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
11:45 am 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?
12:00 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
12:30 pm Lunch Break
Track 1: Emerging Biology & Early Translation
Designing Robust Preclinical Packages for Predictive Tools for Drug Development Providing Translational Confidence
1:30 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
2:00 pm Opportunity to Partner & Present
Please contact sponsor@hansonwade.com for more information.
2:30 pm Engineering Translational Macrophage Models to Build Predictive Preclinical Packages in IPF
- Leveraging patient-derived single-cell signatures in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis to define translational benchmarks for in vitro macrophage models
- Use high-throughput perturbation platforms to identify stimuli that recapitulate disease-relevant macrophage phenotypes
- Integrate macrophage–fibroblast co-culture systems to capture functional crosstalk and improve predictive confidence in drug discovery
3:00 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
1:30 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
2:00 pm Session Reserved for Thorasys
2:30 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?
3:00 pm Session Reserved for Vitalograph
3:30 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!
Understanding the Evolving Investment Landscape
4:00 pm Panel Discussion: Hear from the Investors: What Does “Good” Look Like in IPF Drug Development?
Defining Value, Differentiation & De-Risking in a Competitive Landscape
As the IPF field advances beyond proof-of-concept and into an era of increasing mechanistic diversity, the question is no longer whether IPF drug development is viable, but what makes an asset truly investable.
With new mechanisms emerging and the bar for differentiation rising, clarity on what constitutes a compelling therapeutic story has never been more critical. This panel brings together investors, strategic pharma, and M&A leaders to define what “good” looks like, and what it doesn’t, in today’s IPF landscape.
Key Discussion Points:
- What Builds Conviction Early? What efficacy signals, durability data, mechanistic rationale, safety profile, and translational evidence are required at preclinical and early clinical stages to generate real investor confidence?
- Differentiation vs. Incrementalism? In a field moving beyond simply slowing FVC decline, what level of clinical impact, biomarker validation, or combination rationale is needed to stand out from the noise?
- De-Risking, Timing & Strategic Positioning? How do investors evaluate first-in-class versus best-in-class strategies? What role do trial design, regulatory strategy, management credibility, and partnership readiness play in investment and acquisition decisions?
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
4:30 pm Session Reserved for Qureight
An Update into the Application of Imaging-Based Machine Learning in Fibrotic Lung Disease
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