Developmental Pharmacodynamics and Modeling in Pediatric Drug Development

Challenges in pediatric drug development include small patient numbers, limited outcomes research, ethical barriers, and sparse biosamples. Increasingly, pediatric drug development is focusing on extrapolation: leveraging knowledge about adult disease and drug responses to inform projections of drug and clinical trial performance in pediatric subpopulations. Pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PK-PD) modeling and extrapolation aim to reduce the numbers of patients and data points needed to establish efficacy. Planning for PK-PD and biomarker studies should begin early in the adult drug development program. Extrapolation relies on the assumption that both the underlying disease and the mechanism of action of the drug used to treat that disease are similar in adults and pediatric subpopulations. Clearly, developmental changes in PK and PD need to be considered to enhance the quality of PK-PD modeling and, therefore, increase the success of extrapolation. This article focuses on the influence of differences in PD between adults and pediatric subpopulations that are highly relevant for the use of extrapolation.