The future of clinical trials in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

Purpose of reviewIdiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive lung disease with a poor prognosis and limited therapeutic options. A multitude of promising compounds are currently being investigated; however, the design and conductance of late-phase clinical trials in IPF has proven particularly challenging.Recent findingsDespite promising phase 2 data, ziritaxestat, an autotaxin inhibitor, pentraxin-2, an endogenous protein that regulates wound healing and fibrosis, and pamrevlumab, a human monoclonal antibody against connective tissue growth factor, failed to show efficacy in phase 3 trials. Endpoint selection is critical for the design, execution, and success of clinical trials; recently, attention has been paid to the assessment of how patients feel, function, and survive with the aim of aligning scientific objectives and patient needs in IPF. External control arms are control patients that derive from historical randomized controlled trials, registries, or electronic health records. They are increasingly used to assess treatment efficacy in clinical trials owing to their potential to reduce study duration and cost and increase generalizability of findings.SummaryAdvances in study design, end point selection and statistical analysis, and innovative strategies for more efficient enrolment of study participants have the potential to increase the likelihood of success of late-phase clinical trials in IPF.