- Qureight’s Fibr8 model to provide structural assessment as secondary endpoint in Contineum’s Phase 2 PROPEL-IPF clinical trial examining the safety and efficacy of PIPE-791 in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) patients
- Announcement comes after a recent European Respiratory Journal viewpoint by Qureight CSO identifying fibrosis quantification as the key structural imaging biomarker needed for antifibrotic trials
- PIPE-791 targets lysophosphatidic acid receptor 1 (LPAR1), a clinically validated target for IPF
Cambridge, UK, and San Diego, CA, 9 November 2026 – Qureight, an end-to-end imaging company providing enterprise-grade imaging and precision endpoints for clinical trials for lung and heart disease, and Contineum Therapeutics, Inc. (Contineum), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering differentiated small molecule therapies for inflammatory and fibrotic diseases with significant unmet need, announces that Qureight’s Fibr8™ quantitative imaging biomarker is being used as a secondary endpoint in Contineum’s PROPEL-IPF Phase 2 clinical trial examining the safety and efficacy of PIPE-791, Contineum’s lead drug candidate, in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) patients.
Forced Vital Capacity (FVC), the primary endpoint in PROPEL-IPF, provides an established measure of lung function in IPF patients. Qureight’s AI-powered Fibr8™ imaging biomarker complements FVC by measuring the extent of fibrosis visible on High-Resolution Computed Tomography (HRCT), providing an assessment of structural disease burden. By examining both physiological and quantitative imaging measurements, PROPEL-IPF will investigate treatment effects on both lung function and imaging-defined measures of fibrosis progression, potentially generating valuable evidence to support the development of imaging endpoints for future clinical trials.
PROPEL-IPF (NCT07284459) is a global, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2 clinical trial evaluating the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of once-daily oral PIPE-791 with 26 weeks of treatment in approximately 324 people with IPF. PIPE-791 targets the lysophosphatidic acid receptor 1 (LPAR1), a clinically validated target for IPF.
Qureight recently published a Viewpoint in the European Respiratory Journal advocating for the integration of quantitative fibrosis measurements alongside established physiological endpoints in antifibrotic clinical trials1. PROPEL-IPF represents an important opportunity to try to advance this approach by potentially generating prospective evidence on the relationship between treatment-related changes in lung fibrosis and pulmonary function. This would strengthen the evidence base for quantitative CT as a sensitive measure of therapeutic response and support Qureight’s longer-term ambition to pursue formal regulatory qualification of imaging biomarkers as endpoints in antifibrotic drug development.
Simon Walsh, MD, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, Qureight, commented: “PROPEL-IPF is a strong example of the endpoint model we believe the field needs: preserve FVC as the functional anchor, while measuring fibrosis directly on HRCT. The combination has the potential to help reveal whether a therapy is slowing the structural disease process as well as its downstream functional consequences.”
Timothy Watkins, MD, MSc, Chief Medical Officer, Contineum Therapeutics, added: “Qureight’s approach to quantitatively measure fibrosis could provide important insights in PROPEL-IPF. We are excited for our team to partner with the clinical scientists at Qureight, leveraging this imaging technology platform to enable lung-specific mechanistic insight into the effects of PIPE-791. Ultimately, this measure has the potential to serve as an additional means by which we can assess the impact of PIPE-791 treatment on underlying fibrosis pathology in IPF.”
