Een belangrijke vraag over IPF en het uitgebreide antwoord van Walid Abi-Saab daarop tijdens de cc over de jaarcijfers:
Operator
Thank you. We will now take our next question from Dane Leone of Raymond James. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Dane Leone
Thank you for taking the questions. So a few for me. Just one on the IPF, I think in your words you said that you started kind of daring Phase 2 based off of a somewhat unlimited Phase 1 program. I was just curious, it's been a topic of debate with investors regarding that move into much larger program after that data set.
Could you just kind of reminds us how your team thought about data points that came out of that program in terms of what you specifically were looking out for the signal that gave you the confidence to scale up that program so rapidly? And then I just have a follow-up on Toledo program after that?
Walid Abi-Saab
Thanks Dane. Thank you for your question. You're probably off by 1 Phase in your question. We started the in Phase 3 on good data from a Phase 2 study. And that's why we were looking to find evidence of target engagement and a safety profile that would look good.
If you look recall that 3 men’s that are available currently on the market, some are significantly from adverse events and actually despite the fact this patients are pushing, they have a deadly disease that data systems to give form of cancer they choose not to be on the drug -- about a quarter dropout every year from treatment.
So when we saw the results actually we were very positively impress, not only we had the target engagement we were looking for, a reduction in LPA, but we also have seen effects on the functional capacity, which is one of the -- with the primary endpoint that the FDA looks at and they were clearly a trend between us and placebo. It took significance at week eight, although the study was very much under power to detect that..
Those data were corroborated when we also used home spirometry, which also gives you confidence that those effects are not just by chance that you manage to pick up when you saw these stations on few occasions in the office.
And then when we used the more sensitive imaging technique of FRI, we also managed to detect a signal that indicates that our patients are stabilizing on drugs and on placebo they continue to deteriorate. So when you take the totality of the data, we felt that these data are convincing enough for us to be able to move to the next stage.
And then when we thought about the next stage, we balanced the unmet medical need that's out there with the potential risk that we would be taking by engaging in it. But we felt that if we put the right checks and balances as I described previously in terms of the safety of the patients, as well as the preparing for protecting the company against these investments, we felt that this was the right move that will balance the -- getting the drug to the market potentially 2.5 years earlier than otherwise if you were to do at Phase 2b than in Phase 3, and an engagement -- and getting into the study going.
Now what was great to is after we did all this and move forward, we had a great validation of this particular action by another company, which is BMS. So they've done a trial, which they recently published and their drugs works downstream from us on targeting the LPA1 receptor.
And there was a nice dose-dependent effect that demonstrated a validation of the target. Now, unfortunately for that molecule and actually for the patient as well this compound will not move forward, because they’ve seen some target -- off target activity, I should say, and they let them to stop it, but for us that was a great external validation of wining the decision that we made based on the FLORA data.