Predictive Models from Pharmacological Data

Bioavailability of human insulin assessed from pharmacological data. After extravascu-lar administration only the time course governs the observed pharmacological effects. The pharmacological data was translated into theoretical plasma-concentration data using the PK/PD model. The results of the PK/PD analysis indicate that the doses administered can be accurately predicted from pharmacological data... 

Ideally, pharmacological data should directly be fit to specific models and parameters derived from the direct fit. However, there are cases where the specific models predict surrogate parameters that can be derived without fitting data to the specific model. This can be an advantage. For example, the equation for simple competitive antagonism of receptors (see Section 6.3) is... 

As illustrated above, analytical reasoning dominates current clinical pharmacology in that many efforts are directed at isolating and understanding the various factors that influence clinical effects. This is indeed the analytical phase outlined above, the indispensable phase of data gathering. But the objective is the prediction of clinical effects from results obtained with experimental model systems, and to this end a synthetic phase is necessary. 

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