What

A five-day fundamentals course emphasizing basic principles in pharmacokinetics. This is an annual course now in its 38th year.

diagram.

Context: The role of pharmacokinetics (PK) both within functional biology and within therapeutics.

When

The Pharmacokinetics for Pharmaceutical Scientists course will be held on February 19-23, 2024.  

Where

South San Francisco Conference Center, 255 South Airport Boulevard, South San Francisco, CA 94080  

Who

This course is for anyone with even the most basic of science backgrounds who is seeking an understanding of pharmacokinetics in relationship to its underlying biologic mechanisms, irrespective of whether that person has or has not had prior pharmacokinetics experience.

Past enrollees have ranged in prior pharmacokinetics experience from none to substantial, whether derived from formal education or work experience, or both. They have come from a wide range of levels of seniority in the drug or device industries (both innovator and generic), academia, regulatory agencies, clinical services, general business, or other fields; and they have had a wide range of technical backgrounds, from pure statistics or chemistry to engineering, medicine/veterinary, or pure biology (or mixtures thereof).

Enrollment numbers are limited.

Curriculum

  • Presentations are delivered via lectures and multiple small-group workshops.
  • The first 3½ days are devoted to essential pharmacokinetic parameters and how they are employed to summarize and predict temporal relationships.
  • The balance of the course focuses on elective topics as an introduction to more specific pharmacokinetic interests and applications.
  • There are four elective topics. Because of simultaneous presentation, participants will be able to attend only two of the four elective-topic lectures but will have choices as outlined on the registration form and will receive the written materials from all four electives. Details: see Elective Topics and the Schedule.
  • Some content of this course can change as improvements are made.
  • You can choose to also attend either one of two satellite courses that begin immediately after the elective topics component of the main course. See Optional Half-day Courses.

diagram

A plot of plasma unbound-concentration vs time for a high hepatic-extraction drug before and after adding a second drug, a metabolism inhibitor, to the patient’s treatment.

Changes in shape of most conc-time curves upon most such alterations in patients’ circumstances can be rationally predicted.