News

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted Fast Track designation to PBI-4050, ProMetic Life Sciences’ potential treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF. Regulators recently approved ProMetic’s Investigational New Drug application for PBI-4050 and the company’s design for pivotal Phase 2/3 clinical trials of the therapy. A pivotal…

Ofev (nintedanib) is effective at slowing idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) progression in patients over time regardless of their degree of lung function at the beginning of treatment, according to new results from an extension of a Phase 3 clinical trial. Ofev, by Boehringer Ingelheim, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug…

Researchers have identified a variation of the AKAP13 gene that they say increases people’s susceptibility to developing idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. An article about their discovery, published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, is titled “Genetic variants associated with susceptibility to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in people of European ancestry: a genome-wide association study.” Previous…

Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT), a clinical-stage biopharma focused on developing novel therapeutics for blood-based disorders, is discontinuing its GBT440 program for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). The decision came after GBT evaluated the results from three studies, including one Phase 1 study and two Phase 2a…

More therapies are now available for the 30 million or so people with rare diseases in the U.S. than ever before, and millions of dollars are being invested in clinical studies that will test new ways of evaluating — and advancing — potential treatments, including the use of natural history…

The diabetes therapy vildagliptin reduces lung scarring after bacteria-related lung damage, according to a study in mice. It does this by preventing endothelial cells that line lung blood vessels from transforming themselves into stem cells — a process lungs use to protect themselves from the bacteria-related attack, known as an…

Results from the RECAP clinical trial, which was conducted over five years, support the long-term safety of Esbriet (pirfenidone) in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). The study, “An Open-Label Study of the Long-Term Safety of Pirfenidone in Patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (RECAP),” was recently published in…

Patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) are likely to experience symptoms for years before their diagnosis, a British study reports. University of Nottingham researchers analyzed symptoms in the medical charts of newly diagnosed patients to reach their conclusion. Breathlessness was the most common symptom, the team found. The research,…

A small bacterial protein called R1R2 reduced fibrosis-promoting cells’ ability to go from the blood, where they normally reside, to lung tissue, a mouse study shows. The research, “R1R2 peptide ameliorates pulmonary fibrosis in mice through fibrocyte migration and differentiation,” was published in the journal PLOs One. Scientists…

Pulmonary rehabilitation programs can significantly improve exercise ability, breathing, and overall quality of life in patients with pulmonary diseases, including idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), and should be considered as “a first line therapy” for these people, researchers report. Indeed, the study “Effectiveness of pulmonary rehabilitation in patients with…