Dr Martin Kolb Discusses Combination Therapies and the Future of IPF Treatment

Martin Kolb, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at McMaster University, envisions a future where most patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) may require combination therapies involving multiple drugs. In this interview, he highlights the significance of upcoming clinical trial results, such as those for nerandomilast, in shaping the treatment landscape.

Kolb also serves as a pulmonary physician and director of research at the Firestone Institute for Respiratory Health at St. Joseph’s Healthcare, as well as Jack Gauldie Boehringer Ingelheim Chair in Interstitial Lung Disease.

Transcript

With the promising signs shown by PDE4B inhibitors in treating IPF, what are your hopes for the future landscape of IPF treatment?

The future will probably mean that you will have combination therapies for most patients. Maybe not all of them, there are people who are stable on just 1 drug now. But most people will probably need some kind of combination, if it's a combination of 1 or 2 or 3 drugs or even more, that's to be shown. It's not unusual for complex disorders to have combination therapies, so we will be getting there too for IPF and other pulmonary fibrosis types. If it's nerandomilast or others, that will be shown.

Nerandomilast is certainly probably the next one where we get big news, so we'll see if it's good news for the patients. But it's a very well-done, big clinical trial with a large number of patients, and it will give us an answer. And it will give us not an indeterminate answer, it will show us it works or it doesn't work, and that's important. I mean, of course we all hope for good outcomes here regardless, for the patient side and the physician and the health care provider, so anyone will hope that this goes through, but we'll find out.