MetrumRG scientists traveled to Orlando, FL to join the American Conference on Pharmacometrics for their 2019 annual meeting in October.

Read the latest news, events, and publications from Metrum Research Group in our Fall 2019 Newsletter.

Here’s what you will find in our newsletter:  

• MetrumRG at ACoP10: Our workshops, presentations, and posters!
• Announcement about our newest team members!
• Upcoming events our scientists will be attending or presenting at.
• Publications and presentations by MetrumRG scientists.

The confluence of several factors, including: the growing recognition of the value of quantitative approaches to decision-making in drug development, advancements in numerical methods and analytics, and democratization of modern software engineering, has led to the emergence of multiple pharmacometrics-related software tools, both commercially and publicly licensed. A rigorously managed, high-quality, software development practice is central to reliable and reproducible scientific application and regulatory compliance for these tools. Professional software development best practices should typically be outlined in a Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) policy or procedure, but the extent of guidance, consistency of methods, adherence to procedures, completeness of quality documentation, and execution rigor vary greatly across software development organizations or teams.

August 21-23, 2019

MetrumRG scientists visited Harvard University to participate in the R/Pharma conference.

This was the second annual R/Pharma conference, which included keynotes from renowned industry practitioners, key R developers, and leading academics. There were also several full-length presentations as well as a number of shorter, highly-energetic lightning talks. And new this year, pre-conference workshops were offered to the 150 attendees. MetrumRG was honored to deliver three presentations and to support the event again this year by hosting a mixer on Thursday night. Congratulations to the organizing committee for another successful R/Pharma!

Here is a recap of our MetrumRG presentations:

Our scientists are attending and presenting at many conferences in August. Here's where you can find them:

• August 15-16 | noRth | Minneapolis, MN
• August 20-23 | StanCon | Cambridge, UK
• August 21-23 | R/Pharma | Harvard University
• August 26 | ISoP NE - IPSP Symposium | Cambridge, MA

Read on for more information:

MetrumRG scientists attended and presented at the 2019 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) in Denver, CO. JSM is renowned as the largest gathering of statisticians and data scientists held in North America.

On Thursday, Michael Heathman, M.S., presented "Integration of Pharmacometrics and Statistics to Support Study Design Optimization".

MetrumRG scientists will be presenting a poster at ACoP10 this fall titled "Model-based Dose Selection for a GnRH Receptor Antagonist in Endometriosis and Uterine Fibroids (UF) to Reduce Symptoms While Preventing Lumbar Spine Bone Mineral Density (BMD) Loss". It was announced today that the poster will be honored as an ACoP10 Quality Award Winner for outstanding use of quantitative methods to advance drug development. Authors of the poster are: Kyle Baron, Oliver Pohl, Matthew Riggs, Jonathan French, Jean-Pierre Gotteland, and Ramon Garcia. Be sure to check back with us after the event to see the poster in the Publications section of our website. 

Metrum Research Group scientists participated in the first International Society of Pharmacometrics (ISoP) Regional Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP) Day on July 16, 2019. 

The meeting, which included podium presentations, a poster session, and opportunities for discussion and networking, highlighted several examples of the application of QSP methods in drug development. Particularly notable topics included: the integration of transcriptomics and systems pharmacology models, challenges with calibration of virtual patients in QSP models, and the use of QSP as a scaffold for bridging from well studied therapeutic indications to related but somewhat less understood indications.

Madeleine Gastonguay, of MetrumRG and University of Connecticut, presented the poster "Development of an open-source physiologically-based pharmacokinetic model to predict maternal-fetal exposures of CYP450-metabolized drugs". The open science philosophy, exemplified in this work, resonated with attendees and was also highlighted by several of the conference speakers.

Special thanks goes to the meeting organizers, the ISoP QSP Special Interest Group (ISoP QSP SIG), and hosts, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), for a well organized event and an energizing, thought-provoking day.

Pictures from the event below.

Metrum Research Group staff and families recently participated the Alzheimer’s Association The Longest Day fundraiser. This initiative took place on June 21st, the summer solstice, the day with the most daylight. The goal of this day was to come together to fight the darkness of Alzheimer’s disease. Our employees participated in recognition of the many people we know who have been affected by this disease and also to acknowledge the contributions MetrumRG has made to help fight for a cure (some of this work can be seen here). Participants donated and joined in for a fun evening of playing games together. The game night theme symbolized the effort of keeping the brain active. The event resulted in a nice donation for the Alzheimer’s Association and a fun evening by all who attended.