Applications of Pharmacokinetic Principles in Drug Development

Book excerpt: This volume is an important advancement in the application ofpharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PO) principles to . drug development. The series of topics presented deal with the application of these tools to everyday decisions that a pharmaceutical scientist encounters. The ability to integrate these topics using PK and PO methods has optimized drug development pathways in the clinic. New technologies in the areas of in vitro assays that are more predictive of human absorption and metabolism and advancement in bioanalytical assays are leading the way to minimize drug failures in later, more expensive clinical development programs. of Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics have become an important component understanding the drug action on the body and is becoming increasingly important in drug labeling due to it's potential for predicting drug behavior in populations that may be difficult to study in adequate numbers during drug development. The ability to correlate drug exposure to effect and model it during the drug development value chain provides valuable insight into optimizing the next steps to derive maximum information from each study. These principles and modeling techniques have resulted in an expanded and integrated view of PK and PO and have led to the expectations that we may be able to optimally design clinical trials and eventually lead us to identifying the optimal therapy for the patient, while minimizing cost and speeding up drug development. There is wide utility for the book both as a text and as a reference.