Annual pharmacometrics workshop series hosts pharmaceutical scientists, academics from around the world

Pharmacometrics Workshop.

By Kara Sweet

Published May 24, 2019

The 2019 Buffalo Pharmacometrics Workshop Series was held May 9-18 at the Niagara Falls Conference and Event Center. It was attended by nearly 150 pharmaceutical scientists and members of industry and academia from 11 different countries across North America, Europe and Asia.

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The series, sponsored by the University at Buffalo Center of Excellence in Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics, consisted of four specialized courses:

  • A 3-Day Introductory Workshop in Population PK/PD Data Analysis with NONMEM®
    This introductory population PK training workshop provided the necessary information to successfully implement population pharmacokinetic methodology in a drug development program and to provide the foundation for understanding the basics of NONMEM coding and interpretation of NONMEM output. The workshop was taught by Jill Fiedler-Kelly and Joel Owen, co-authors of Introduction to Population Pharmacokinetic/ Pharmacodynamic Analysis with Nonlinear Mixed Effects Models.
  • Pharmacokinetic-Pharmacodynamic Modeling
    With diverse pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modeling concepts, it is possible to describe and predict the time course of drug effects under various physiological and pathological conditions. The study of PK/PD and disease progression relationships can be of considerable value in understanding drug action, summarizing extensive data, building a knowledge repository, finding optimal dosing regimens, and in making predictions under new circumstances. This course was directed by William Jusko, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Donald Mager, professor of pharmaceutical sciences.
  • Structural PK/PD Model Building for Basic Clinical and Pre-Clinical Pharmacology Studies
    This course was designed to fill a gap between basic population PK/PD methodology training and the application of population methods to the types of studies and data often encountered by attendees in practice during the course of drug development. The course was directed by Daniel Weiner, PhD, co-author of Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Data Analysis: Concepts and Applications’ 5th ed. (2016), co-developer of PCNonlin, NONLIN84, and WinNonlin and a co-designer of Phoenix NLME.
  • A 3-Day Workshop on Monoclonal Antibody Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics
    This workshop was designed to provide a detailed discussion of issues relevant to the PK/PD modeling of antibody drugs, and to provide a series of “hands-on” case studies describing the development and application of mathematical models to simulate and characterize antibody PK/PD. The course instructors were UB faculty members Joseph Balthasar, professor of pharmaceutical sciences, Donald Mager, professor of pharmaceutical sciences, and Dhaval Shah, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences, and David D’Argenio, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California.

The original PK/PD workshop was established in 1994 by SUNY Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences William Jusko (BS ’65 & PhD ’70) and Professor Meindert Denhof from Leiden University in the Netherlands, and initially offered in both the U.S. and Europe. More recently, it moved to Niagara Falls, N.Y. and expanded to include the courses on population pharmacokinetic modeling, monoclonal antibody PK/PD, use of the ADAPT software, and use of the Phoenix software.

For over 130 years, the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences has continually been a leader in the education of pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists, renowned for innovation in clinical practice and research. The school is accredited by the American Council of Pharmaceutical Education (ACPE) and ranked as one of the top 25 schools of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences in the United States.