The 2026 DIA Global Annual Meeting was held in Shanghai recently. Organized by the Drug Information Association (DIA), the conference was themed "Inspiring Innovative Value in Regulation, R&D, and Global Access." It brought together representatives from healthcare regulatory agencies, leading research and development companies, and clinical research institutions across more than 40 countries and regions. The Clinical Trial Center team from West China Hospital, Sichuan University (WCH), attended the conference and engaged in in-depth exchanges and collaboration discussions with domestic and international peers through booth presentations, thematic roadshows, and panel sessions.

During the conference, the WCH Clinical Trial Center set up an exhibition booth and delivered daily thematic roadshows. These presentations covered recent process and quality innovation initiatives at the center, early-phase unit construction and signature research projects, principal investigator teams from various hospital departments, and developments in the clinical pharmacology laboratory. These efforts strengthened communication with sponsors, contract research organizations (CROs), and research institutions, laying the groundwork for future multi-center collaboration and business development.
On May 16, the WCH Clinical Trial Center took the lead in organizing a session titled "Respiratory Drug Development Forum." The forum was co-moderated by Zheng Li, Director of the Clinical Trial Center, and Ms. Tao Haoxun from Boehringer Ingelheim. During the session, domestic and international experts shared in-depth insights on drug development for interstitial lung disease (ILD), clinical trial design, and the construction of research-oriented wards. Luo Zhu, Deputy Director of the Clinical Trial Center, moderated a roundtable discussion. Several industry experts and WCH clinicians engaged in thorough discussions on unmet needs in the respiratory field, challenges in ILD trials, and the application of decentralized clinical trial (DCT) technologies. The discussion provided practical ideas and industry consensus for respiratory drug development.
The center's participation in this conference fully demonstrated the professional expertise and innovative achievements of WCH's clinical trial institution. It also created opportunities for future collaboration in areas such as respiratory drug development. Moving forward, the Clinical Trial Center will continue to leverage its platform advantages, deepen industry-university-research and hospital-enterprise collaboration, promote efficient integration of clinical needs and industrial R&D, contribute to high-quality development of drug innovation in China, and help safeguard public health.