MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 30, 2008 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pharsight Corporation (Nasdaq:PHST), a leading provider of software, strategic consulting, and regulatory services for optimizing clinical drug development, today announced that Samer Mouksassi, Pharm.D., associate scientist, Pharsight Reporting and Analysis Services, has been invited to speak to clinical and pharmacological scientists attending the 2nd World Conference on Magic Bullets (Ehrlich II). The Ehrlich II Conference will be held at the Georg-Simon-Ohm University for Applied Sciences in Nurnberg, Germany from October 3-5, 2008. Dr. Mouksassi will present at the conference plenary session on October 3.
"The Ehrlich II Conference commemorates the one-hundredth anniversary of the Nobel Prize awarded to Dr. Paul Ehrlich, a pioneer in the field of clinical cancer research and the use of drug therapy to treat disease," said John E. Murphy, DrPH, senior vice president of Pharsight Consulting Services. "Dr. Ehrlich coined the term 'magic bullet' to capture the promise of a perfectly efficacious drug with no side effects, and recognizing the very real challenges of balancing safety and efficacy inherent to clinical drug development."
Dr. Mouksassi's presentation, entitled, "Modeling and Simulation for Optimal Drug Development in Pediatric Populations," will include two case studies on the use of pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) modeling, clinical trial simulation and allometric scaling to support pediatric drug development programs. The first case study focuses on the use of model-based methods to optimize the dose of a biologic product for a rare disease in children. The second case study focuses on the application of modeling and simulation to optimize the pediatric dose of a chemotherapy agent.
Also on October 3, Dr. Mouksassi will lead two conference workshops on modeling and simulation techniques. The first workshop will introduce standard non-compartmental methods of PK data analysis, utilizing Pharsight's WinNonlin(r) software. The second workshop will present an applied case study on the use of clinical trial simulation as a tool to design robust and effective clinical trials, utilizing Pharsight's Trial Simulator software(tm).
"The interdisciplinary science of PK/PD modeling and simulation continues to show value for quantifying safety and efficacy tradeoffs, for optimizing drug dose, and for improving the confidence of drug development decisions," added Dr. Murphy. "Model-based methods are particularly useful to support pediatric drug development because they provide a means to leverage knowledge from adult clinical studies, enabling efficient data collection and minimizing the number of infants and children required in clinical trials. Pharsight is pleased to be invited to the Ehrlich II Conference, to share its modeling and simulation approaches and software tools with pharmaceutical scientists from around the world who are dedicated to developing important new therapies to improve human health."
Additional information about the Ehrlich II Conference can be found at www.ehrlich-2008.org.
About Pharsight Corporation
Pharsight Corporation develops and markets integrated products and services that enable pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to achieve significant and enduring improvements in the development and use of therapeutic products. Pharsight's goal is to help customers reduce the time, cost and risk of drug development, as well as optimize the post-approval marketing and use of pharmaceutical products.
Pharsight's approach enhances the fundamental element of drug development success: strong decision-making. By adopting the Pharsight approach, customers acquire a new decision-making process with the potential to systematically improve every level and phase of their business and scientific processes. Pharsight Corporation is headquartered in Mountain View, California. Information about Pharsight is available at www.pharsight.com.
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Pharsight, WinNonlin, and Trial Simulator are trademarks or registered trademarks of Pharsight Corporation. All other brand or product names mentioned in this documentation are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies or organizations.