Pirfenidone is the drug sold under the name of Esbriet in Europe and Canada and does not yet have US FDA approval but according to the article below, it sounds promising it could happen before the end of the year. The 
drug treats scarring of the lungs and there’s been no cause determined yet as it affects 70-200k Americans. As scarring builds up people lose the ability to breathe and eventually die. There are no other treatments for this condition other than some off label use and the other option is a lung transplant.
Boehringer Ingelheim of Germany is also working on a drug to treat Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which is the official diagnosis. BD
The Swiss drug maker Roche agreed on Sunday to buy InterMune — which sells a drug to treat a deadly lung
disease — for $8.3 billion, as pharmaceutical companies continue to seek new products to bolster their offerings. The price, $74 a share, represents a 38 percent premium to InterMune’s closing price on Friday and a 63 percent premium to the price on Aug.12, before news reports that InterMune might be acquired.
The acquisition was announced amid a flurry of pharmaceutical deals and attempted deals.About $87 billion in pharmaceutical acquisitions were made in the first half of this year, eclipsing the total for all of 2013, according to Evaluate, a research company. The total for the first half does not include the $54 billion acquisition of Shire by AbbVie, which was announced in July.
InterMune, based in Brisbane, Calif., has one product on the market: a drug called pirfenidone to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a fatal scarring of the lungs.
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