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Systems Pharmacology: Defining the Interactions of Drug Combinations

J G Coen van Hasselt1,2, Ravi Iyengar1

  • 1Department of Pharmacological Sciences, Systems Biology Center, Mount Sinai Institute for Systems Biomedicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA;

Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology
|September 28, 2018
PubMed

Insights

Combination drug therapies offer improved treatment by targeting multiple pathways, unlike single-drug approaches. Systems pharmacology enables rational identification of these complex therapies for personalized medicine.

Area of Science:

  • Pharmacology
  • Systems Biology
  • Precision Medicine

Background:

  • Most diseases involve complex molecular and cellular interactions, limiting single-target drug effectiveness.
  • Combination drug therapies show promise for enhanced efficacy and reduced side effects, but identifying optimal combinations is difficult.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To discuss state-of-the-art systems pharmacology approaches for the rational identification of combination drug therapies.
  • To highlight the potential of systems pharmacology in understanding drug interactions across multiple biological levels.

Main Methods:

  • Characterizing disease mechanisms and drug actions at a systems level.
  • Analyzing drug interactions at molecular, cellular, physiological, and organismal scales.
  • Utilizing systems pharmacology for a multiscale understanding of disease and treatment.

Main Results:

  • Systems pharmacology enables a comprehensive understanding of drug interactions.
  • Multiscale analysis reveals potential synergistic effects and reduced adverse reactions.
  • Rational identification of combination therapies can be achieved through these advanced approaches.

Conclusions:

  • Systems pharmacology is crucial for advancing combination drug therapy development.
  • This approach facilitates precision medicine by enabling patient-specific combination treatments.
  • Understanding complex disease pathways is key to unlocking the full potential of combination therapies.
Keywords:
QSPcombination therapymodelingpharmacodynamicsquantitative systems pharmacologysystems biologysystems pharmacology

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