Pharmacometrics
Area Specialist: Dr. Andrew Castleman
Pharmacometrics is the quantitative study of how the body processes drugs (Pharmacokinetics), the effects the drug has on the body (Pharmacodynamics), the progression of diseases and trial design. The purpose of performing pharmacometric analysis can be viewed as informing decision making regarding drug approval by regulatory agencies, information contained in the drug label such as dosing, improving the efficiency of clinical trials and even modifying individual patient care.
Pharmacometrics is a growing field that involves people of various skills. This includes quantitative pharmacologists, statisticians, engineers, data managers, and clinicians. Additionally, pharmacists bring important expertise to the field. Being trained in many of the same areas as other team members, pharmacists can act as translators that are able to communicate with all members of the team.
Training in pharmacometrics involves studying the basics of pharmacokinetics, statistics, computer programming for data management, the software used for creating a model to fit data as well as other software tools. At Union, we primarily use the R programming language and NONMEM for fitting models.
Recent Publications/Presentations
- Gaurav, M., Owen, JS., & Castleman, A. (2019). Pharmacometrics in Leukemia. In B. L, Frontiers in Leukemia Pharmacotherapy (pp. 365-382). New York: Nova Science Publishers.
- Clary, J., Fiedler-Kelly J. & Owen, J. (2019 March). Clarity in Reporting Parameter Variance Needed to Improve Use of Published Models for Simulation Applications. Poster session presented at ASCPT in Washington DC.