Graham Clarke, AstraZeneca
Respiratory diseases represent one of the greatest unmet medical needs of our time, with conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) continuing to impose significant global health and societal burdens. Despite their prevalence and severity, therapeutic progress has historically been slow, constrained by limited mechanistic insight, suboptimal translational models, and the complexity of lung biology. As the field advances, there is a clear opportunity to reshape respiratory drug development with technologies that better reflect human physiology, improve predictive power, and accelerate innovation.