Pharmacokinetic Model

What Is a Pharmacokinetic Model?

Pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamics (PK/PD) modeling, an integral component of the drug development process, is a mathematical technique for predicting the effect and efficacy of drug dosing over time. Broadly speaking, pharmacokinetic models describe how the body reacts to a drug in terms of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion. Pharmacodynamic models describe how a drug affects the body by linking the drug concentration to an efficacy (or safety) metric. A well-characterized PK/PD model is an important tool in guiding the design of future experiments and trials.

The PK/PD modeling process includes the following steps:

  • Import, process, and visualize time-course data
  • Select a pharmacokinetic model from a library, or create mechanism-based PK/PD models using the interactive block-diagram editor
  • Estimate model parameters using nonlinear regression or NLME methods
  • Explore system dynamics, using parameter sweeps and sensitivity analysis
  • Simulate dosing strategies and what-if scenarios

To learn more about PK/PD modeling, see SimBiology®.

See also: computational biology, biotech and pharmaceutical, Curve Fitting Toolbox, Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox, pharmacokinetic videos, research with MATLAB, quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP)