Improving Translational Decision-Making through Disease-Relevant Preclinical Models in Pulmonary Fibrosis and Pain Drug Discovery

Title : Improving Translational Decision-Making through Disease-Relevant Preclinical Models in Pulmonary Fibrosis and Pain Drug Discovery

Webinar Overview :
Drug discovery for pulmonary fibrosis and pain continues to face major translational challenges. In pulmonary fibrosis, more than a decade has passed between the approval of pirfenidone/nintedanib and the next novel-mechanism antifibrotic, reflecting compounding gaps: trial designs not yet stratified by patient heterogeneity, reliance on a single nonclinical model that does not fully extrapolate to established, chronic disease, and nonclinical endpoints that remain difficult to map onto clinical readouts. In pain, diverse biological mechanisms—ranging from peripheral nerve injury to altered central pain processing—make selecting appropriate, disease-relevant preclinical models essential for evaluating novel therapeutic approaches.

In this webinar, we will introduce validated evaluation systems tailored to each compound’s mechanism and discuss how integrating multiple, complementary approaches strengthens confidence in translational decision-making and supports better go/no-go decisions.

For pulmonary fibrosis, we will present a bleomycin in vivo platform combined with AI-based quantitative pathology and FlexiVent respiratory function, mouse precision-cut lung slices (PCLS), and an IPF organoid model derived from human iPSCs, each anchored by an approved drug (nerandomilast or nintedanib). These systems are designed to be read together, so that a single efficacy signal becomes an integrated interpretation. For pain drug discovery, we will introduce disease-relevant preclinical models of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), and fibromyalgia (FM), and demonstrate how integrated assessment of pain phenotypes, nerve dysfunction, pathology, and molecular mechanisms can improve confidence in translational decision-making for novel therapeutic strategies.

Key topics:

Pulmonary Fibrosis Focus

• Bleomycin in vivo platform combined with AI-based quantitative pathology and FlexiVent respiratory function assessment
• Mouse precision-cut lung slices (PCLS) as a complementary ex vivo evaluation system
• Human iPSC-derived IPF organoid model for assessing species differences in efficacy
• Evaluation systems anchored by approved drugs (nerandomilast, nintedanib) and selected according to compound mechanism
• Integrating evidence across multiple systems to translate a single efficacy signal into a robust interpretation that supports go/no-go decision-making

Pain Drug Discovery Focus

• Disease-relevant preclinical models of CIPN, DPN, and FM
• Integrated evaluation of pain-related phenotypes, nerve dysfunction, pathology, and molecular mechanisms
• Contribution of integrated approaches to the evaluation of novel therapeutic strategies in pain research