A fully automatic tool for development of population pharmacokinetic models.

Population pharmacokinetic (PK) models are widely used to inform drug development by pharmaceutical companies and facilitate drug evaluation by regulatory agencies. Developing a population PK model is a multi-step, challenging, and time-consuming process involving iterative manual model fitting and evaluation. A tool for fully automatic model development (AMD) of common population PK models is presented here. The AMD tool is implemented in Pharmpy, a versatile open-source library for pharmacometrics. It consists of different modules responsible for developing the different components of population PK models, including the structural model, the inter-individual variability (IIV) model, the inter-occasional variability (IOV) model, the residual unexplained variability (RUV) model, the covariate model, and the allometry model. The AMD tool was evaluated using 10 real PK datasets involving the structural, IIV, and RUV modules in three sequences. The different sequences yielded generally consistent structural models; however, there were variations in the results of the IIV and RUV models. The final models of the AMD tool showed lower Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) values and similar visual predictive check plots compared with the available published models, indicating reasonable quality, in addition to reasonable run time. A similar conclusion was also drawn in a simulation study. The developed AMD tool serves as a promising tool for fast and fully automatic population PK model building with the potential to facilitate the use of modeling and simulation in drug development.

Development of visual predictive checks accounting for multimodal parameter distributions in mixture models.

The assumption of interindividual variability being unimodally distributed in nonlinear mixed effects models does not hold when the population under study displays multimodal parameter distributions. Mixture models allow the identification of parameters characteristic to a subpopulation by describing these multimodalities. Visual predictive check (VPC) is a standard simulation based diagnostic tool, but not yet adapted to account for multimodal parameter distributions. Mixture model analysis provides the probability for an individual to belong to a subpopulation (IPmix) and the most likely subpopulation for an individual to belong to (MIXEST). Using simulated data examples, two implementation strategies were followed to split the data into subpopulations for the development of mixture model specific VPCs. The first strategy splits the observed and simulated data according to the MIXEST assignment. A shortcoming of the MIXEST-based allocation strategy was a biased allocation towards the dominating subpopulation. This shortcoming was avoided by splitting observed and simulated data according to the IPmix assignment. For illustration purpose, the approaches were also applied to an irinotecan mixture model demonstrating 36% lower clearance of irinotecan metabolite (SN-38) in individuals with UGT1A1 homo/heterozygote versus wild-type genotype. VPCs with segregated subpopulations were helpful in identifying model misspecifications which were not evident with standard VPCs. The new tool provides an enhanced power of evaluation of mixture models.

Variability Attribution for Automated Model Building.

We investigated the possible advantages of using linearization to evaluate models of residual unexplained variability (RUV) for automated model building in a similar fashion to the recently developed method "residual modeling." Residual modeling, although fast and easy to automate, cannot identify the impact of implementing the needed RUV model on the imprecision of the rest of model parameters. We used six RUV models to be tested with 12 real data examples. Each example was first linearized; then, we assessed the agreement in improvement of fit between the base model and its extended models for linearization and conventional analysis, in comparison to residual modeling performance. Afterward, we compared the estimates of parameters' variabilities and their uncertainties obtained by linearization to conventional analysis. Linearization accurately identified and quantified the nature and magnitude of RUV model misspecification similar to residual modeling. In addition, linearization identified the direction of change and quantified the magnitude of this change in variability parameters and their uncertainties. This method is implemented in the software package PsN for automated model building/evaluation with continuous data.

Model-Based Residual Post-Processing for Residual Model Identification.

The purpose of this study was to investigate if model-based post-processing of common diagnostics can be used as a diagnostic tool to quantitatively identify model misspecifications and rectifying actions. The main investigated diagnostic is conditional weighted residuals (CWRES). We have selected to showcase this principle with residual unexplained variability (RUV) models, where the new diagnostic tool is used to scan extended RUV models and assess in a fast and robust way whether, and what, extensions are expected to provide a superior description of data. The extended RUV models evaluated were autocorrelated errors, dynamic transform both sides, inter-individual variability on RUV, power error model, t-distributed errors, and time-varying error magnitude. The agreement in improvement in goodness-of-fit between implementing these extended RUV models on the original model and implementing these extended RUV models on CWRES was evaluated in real and simulated data examples. Real data exercise was applied to three other diagnostics: conditional weighted residuals with interaction (CWRESI), individual weighted residuals (IWRES), and normalized prediction distribution errors (NPDE). CWRES modeling typically predicted (i) the nature of model misspecifications, (ii) the magnitude of the expected improvement in fit in terms of difference in objective function value (ΔOFV), and (iii) the parameter estimates associated with the model extension. Alternative metrics (CWRESI, IWRES, and NPDE) also provided valuable information, but with a lower predictive performance of ΔOFV compared to CWRES. This method is a fast and easily automated diagnostic tool for RUV model development/evaluation process; it is already implemented in the software package PsN.

Comparisons of Analysis Methods for Assessment of Pharmacodynamic Interactions Including Design Recommendations.

Quantitative evaluation of potential pharmacodynamic (PD) interactions is important in tuberculosis drug development in order to optimize Phase 2b drug selection and ultimately to define clinical combination regimens. In this work, we used simulations to (1) evaluate different analysis methods for detecting PD interactions between two hypothetical anti-tubercular drugs in in vitro time-kill experiments, and (2) provide design recommendations for evaluation of PD interactions. The model used for all simulations was the Multistate Tuberculosis Pharmacometric (MTP) model linked to the General Pharmacodynamic Interaction (GPDI) model. Simulated data were re-estimated using the MTP-GPDI model implemented in Bliss Independence or Loewe Additivity, or using a conventional model such as an Empirical Bliss Independence-based model or the Greco model based on Loewe Additivity. The GPDI model correctly characterized different PD interactions (antagonism, synergism, or asymmetric interaction), regardless of the underlying additivity criterion. The commonly used conventional models were not able to characterize asymmetric PD interactions, i.e., concentration-dependent synergism and antagonism. An optimized experimental design was developed that correctly identified interactions in ≥ 94% of the evaluated scenarios using the MTP-GPDI model approach. The MTP-GPDI model approach was proved to provide advantages to other conventional models for assessing PD interactions of anti-tubercular drugs and provides key information for selection of drug combinations for Phase 2b evaluation.

Preconditioning of Nonlinear Mixed Effects Models for Stabilisation of Variance-Covariance Matrix Computations.

As the importance of pharmacometric analysis increases, more and more complex mathematical models are introduced and computational error resulting from computational instability starts to become a bottleneck in the analysis. We propose a preconditioning method for non-linear mixed effects models used in pharmacometric analyses to stabilise the computation of the variance-covariance matrix. Roughly speaking, the method reparameterises the model with a linear combination of the original model parameters so that the Hessian matrix of the likelihood of the reparameterised model becomes close to an identity matrix. This approach will reduce the influence of computational error, for example rounding error, to the final computational result. We present numerical experiments demonstrating that the stabilisation of the computation using the proposed method can recover failed variance-covariance matrix computations, and reveal non-identifiability of the model parameters.

Responde realmente la Cooperación Internacional a lo que Colombia necesita?: elementos de consideración sobre la acción de la comunidad internacional frente al conflicto armado colombiano / International Cooperation really answer to Colombian needs?: elements to consider on the action of International Community in front to Colombian armed conflict

De las varias versiones del Plan colombia, si se mira de un modo más integral se descubren muchos componentes bajo una sola noción articuladora, en donde los propósitos geopolíticos, militares y estratégicos de una potencia se matizan con otras piezas que arman esta noción. Un Plan militar y de control políticos de alcances regionales no se expresa solamente en inversiones ara la guerra o en acciones armadas. Bien concebido, el Plan es complementado con acciones de tipo social, propuestas de desarrollo, ideas de participación y acciones de tipo humanitario. En eso no hay contradicción, por el contrario hay una construcción integral, pero que no debe llamar a engaños. Toda cooperación tiene sus propias finalidades, lo que se expresa en una agenda determinada. Esta agenda puede hacerse mas o menos explícita, cuando se trata de la materialización de estrategias geopolíticas y preocupaciones por la estabilidad de una subregión que vive profundas convulsiones políticas. En tal sentido la lucha antidrogas cumple específicamante una función de posicionamiento político y militar