At the 9th Antifibrotic Drug Development Summit, Dr. Yanling Zhang presented MatrileX’s research poster, “Back to the Future: Using Clinical Trial Design to Enhance the Utility of Preclinical Testing in Fibrotic Diseases.”
The poster highlights strategies to strengthen the translational value of preclinical antifibrotic studies by applying key principles traditionally used in clinical trial design. These include:
- Selecting disease-relevant models that better reflect human pathology
- Prioritizing functional outcomes such as GFR and albuminuria over purely histological scores
- Prespecifying primary and secondary endpoints to reduce bias
- Incorporating standard-of-care (SoC) therapy when evaluating potential add-on agents
- Using appropriate negative controls to avoid misinterpreting non-specific anti-inflammatory effects
- Designing dosing strategies that reflect clinically realistic exposure
By integrating these elements, the framework aims to reduce false positives, rescue promising therapeutics that might otherwise be overlooked, and improve the overall predictive power of preclinical antifibrotic research.
MatrileX remains committed to advancing rigorous, clinically aligned approaches that accelerate the development of effective antifibrotic therapies.