The PKlab at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) was formally created to provide clinicians and researchers with a core competence in Quantitative Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacometrics (QCPP).
- “Pharmacometrics is the science which deals with quantitative description of disease, drug effects and variability (ref. American College of Clinical Pharmacology)”.
- “Pharmacometrics is defined as the science that quantifies drug, disease and trial information to aid efficient drug development and/or regulatory decisions (ref. Division of Pharmacometrics, Office of Clinical Pharmacology, FDA)”. It merges the fields of:
- Pharmacokinetics (PK) and Pharmacodynamics (PD)
- Disease biology
- Biostatistics
- Computer sciences and Simulation
Integrated in the Pharmacometrics Core at the BCH / Harvard Medical School, the PKlab complements other core facilities within the Longwood Medical Area. Being jointly sponsored by the department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative and Pain Medicine, and by the Pharmacy Department. It engages in internal projects, such as stability studies of compounded pediatric formulations, as well as inter-departmental collaborations, both intra and extramural, such as quantifying drugs and/or metabolites in biological matrices.
The PKlab also operates as a Contract Research Organization (CRO) addressing specific clients’ needs as much as possible within its mission. Notable examples include animal studies for which brain tissue drug contents were determined and modelled in the context of developing new chemical entities (NCEs).
