Abstract:
Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM) is a widespread strategy for dosing individualisation. It involves
determining the concentration of a drug in a biological sample, comparing it to a target range, and
adjusting the dosage accordingly to prevent toxicity and improve treatment outcomes.
The first part of this webinar explains the traditional concept of TDM, together with opportunities and
challenges of this approach. It additionally highlights new developments to enhance TDM and current
scientific evidence on TDM.
The second part of this webinar presents the current evidence for TDM of therapeutic antibodies in
immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. Furthermore, it sheds light on advances in TDM that will help
optimize antibody therapies and break therapeutic ceilings.
Dr. Iris Minichmayr, Medical University of Vienna, Austria
Dr. Iris Minichmayr is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacometrics at the Medical University of Vienna/Department of Clinical Pharmacology. She undertook her doctoral studies in pharmacometrics at the Dept. of Clinical Pharmacy of Freie Universitaet Berlin/Germany and completed several hospital-based and academic research visits in Europe, Chile and Australia, followed by a four-year research stay in the Pharmacometrics group at Uppsala University/Sweden.
The main objective of her research is to optimize and personalize anti-infective and other drug therapies for special patient populations. Key areas include population pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modelling and simulation of clinical, preclinical and translational scenarios, therapeutic drug monitoring, and model-based precision dosing.
Iris currently serves as Associate Editor for the journal Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics and as Vice Chair of the Pharmacometrics Committee of the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology (IATDMCT), and is a founding member of the Precision Dosing Community of the American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT).
Dr. Erwin Dreesen, KU Leuven, Belgium
Dr. Erwin DreesenĀ is an assistant professor at KU Leuven in Belgium where he leads the Pharmacometrics
research group at the Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences. His Ph.D. research
focused on the use of pharmacometrics models to improve therapeutic drug monitoring of monoclonal
antibodies in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. During his postdoctoral training, he worked
at the Pharmacometrics research group at Uppsala University, Sweden, and the Integrative
Pharmacology Laboratory at the University of San Francisco, California, USA.
His research at KU Leuven is focused on optimizing drug dosing in vulnerable patient populations.
Applications are mainly situated in the areas of model-informed precision dosing (MIPD) of monoclonal
antibodies, anti-infectives, and immunosuppressives. Erwin currently supervises nine Ph.D. students and
coordinates a clinical trial on MIPD of infliximab in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases.
Erwin is a member of the Ethics Committee Research UZ / KU Leuven, works as a scientific expert for the
Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA),
and leads Working Group 2 of the ENOTTA COST Action.