Animal pharmacokinetics

Compound optimization in early- and late-phase drug discovery is covered, emphasizing physicochemical properties, in vitro absorption, metabolism and in vivo animal pharmacokinetic methodologies. 

In vivo Method for Estimating Human Oral Bioavailability from Animal Pharmacokinetic Studies... 

Obach et al. [27] proposed a model to predict human bioavailability from a retrospective study of in vitro metabolism and in vivo animal pharmacokinetic (PK) data. While their model yielded acceptable predictions (within a factor of 2) for an expansive group of compounds, it relied extensively on in vivo animal PK data for interspecies scaling in order to estimate human PK parameters. Animal data are more time-consuming and costly to obtain than are permeability and metabolic clearance data hence, this approach may be limited to the later stages of discovery support when the numbers of compounds being evaluated are fewer. 

Predicting VD from in vivo data (animal pharmacokinetic data) 474... 

Prediction methods based on animal pharmacokinetic data can be categorized into three types (1) allometric scaling, (2) proportionality methods, and (3) correlative approaches. All three make a basic underlying assumption that the types... 

In an early application of in silico approaches to predict human VD, Ritschel and coworkers described an approach using artificial neural networks (ANN), in this case for VDp [34]. However, this was not a truly in silico-only approach as the ANN that yielded accurate predictions of human VD required animal pharmacokinetic data as input parameters, along with in vitro data (protein binding and logP). 

Also included in in vivo data is a set of human (90% of drugs) and animal pharmacokinetic (30% of drugs) data. While the in vitro data are generated in-house (Cerep), pharmacokinetic data are gathered from the literature. A variety of different parameters are covered including absolute bioavailability, oral absorption, clearance, volume of distribution, half-life, protein binding and excretion information. 

Toxicokinetics has become a critically important component of any nonclinical program (see discussion in Section 14.10). Current ICH guidelines require the determination of animal pharmacokinetics at all dose levels administered on at least 2 days (beginning and end) during a nonclinical toxicology study.5 Similarly, this requires the development of a validated analytical method for the determination of parent drug (and possible major metabolites). 

When considering the Hkely pharmacokinetic profile of a novel compound in man, it is important to recognize the variability that may be encountered in the cHnical setting. Animal pharmacokinetic studies are generally conducted in inbred animal colonies that tend to show minimal inter-subject variabiHty. The human population contains a diverse genetic mix, without the additional variability introduced by age, disease states, environmental factors and co-medications. Hence any estimate of pharmacokinetic behaviour in man must be tempered by the expected inherent variability. For compounds with high metabolic clearance (e. g. midazolam), inter-individual variability in metabolic clearance can lead to greater than 10-fold variation in oral clearance and hence systemic exposure [1]. 

Prediction of Human Volume of Distribution from Animal Pharmacokinetic Data... 

Finally, no discussion of human pharmacokinetic predictions is complete without a consideration of allometric scaling [67-69]. In general, allometry is the examination of relationships between size and function and it has been applied to the prediction of human pharmacokinetic parameters from animal pharmacokinetic parameters for decades [70]. Allometry has been shown to work reasonably well for predicting human VD from animal VD data, probably because volumes of plasma and various tissue across species are allometrically scaleable to body weight, a notion reinforced... 

Both human and animal pharmacokinetic studies have been done on ginkgo flavonol aglycones (quercetin, kaempferol, and isorhamnetin) and terpene trilactones (ginkgolide A and B and bilobalide). 

Once a chemical is in systemic circulation, the next concern is how rapidly it is cleared from the body. Under the assumption of steady-state exposure, the clearance rate drives the steady-state concentration in the blood and other tissues, which in turn will help determine what types of specific molecular activity can be expected. Chemicals are processed through the liver, where a variety of biotransformation reactions occur, for instance, making the chemical more water soluble or tagging it for active transport. The chemical can then be actively or passively partitioned for excretion based largely on the physicochemical properties of the parent compound and the resulting metabolites. Whole animal pharmacokinetic studies can be carried out to determine partitioning, metabolic fate, and routes and extent of excretion, but these studies are extremely laborious and expensive, and are often difficult to extrapolate to humans. To complement these studies, and in some cases to replace them, physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models can be constructed [32, 33]. These are typically compartment-based models that are parameterized for particular... 

Option 2 Use of Animal Pharmacokinetic Modeling to Derive Biomarker-Based Dose-Response Relationship... 

Option 3 Obtaining Sufficient Animal Pharmacokinetic Data to Develop a Biomarker-Response Relationship... 

C. D. Schiller. 1999. Animal pharmacokinetics of the tumor necrosis factor receptor-immunoglobulin fusion protein lenercept and their extrapolation to humans. Drug Metab. Dispos. 27 21—25. 

Young JF, Wosilait WD, Luecke RH. 2001. Analysis of methylmercury disposition in humans utilizing a PBPK model and animal pharmacokinetic data. J Toxicol Environ Health A 63 19-52. 

Six scientific disciplines are involved in the developability characterization of a lead discovery candidate. As shown in Figure 4, these disciplines are in vivo pharmacology, bioanalytical method development, nonclinical formulation assessment, animal pharmacokinetics, drug metabolism, and toxicology. The following sections discuss each of these scientific disciplines in more detail. 

Unless justified from pharmacokinetic results from humans, additional animal pharmacokinetic are not usually conducted during nonclinical development. Types of animal pharmacokinetics that might be performed include (a) multi-... 

Chemical data (e.g., physical and chemical properties, structureactivity relationships, and environmental fate and transport), basic toxicity data, and pharmacokinetic data (information on absorption, distribution (including placental and lactational transfer), metabolism, and excretion) should be reviewed. These data are particularly important because reproductive and developmental effects are interpreted in the context of general toxicity data in humans or experimental animals. Pharmacokinetic data for both animals and humans can be helpful in extrapolating exposure levels from one species to another. 

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