Monday, November 3, 2008

NONMEM Resources

I started learning NONMEM through a local discussion group headed by Dr. Alexander A. Vinks, at Cincinnati Childrens hospital. The small group comprised of few MS/PhD graduate students (including me) and faculty from pharmacy/mathematics. We have been meeting biweekly since 2006 and discuss about modeling data using NONMEM and other statistical softwares. Each of us had an opportunity to use real clinical data obtained from paediatric patients and develop PK/PD models to describe the data. We had guest lectures by Nick Holford MD, Dr. Roger Jeliffe MD, Jurgen Bulitta PhD about the use of NONMEM, USC Pack in population PK/PD modeling. Modeling and simulation has now become an integral part of drug development process and is being used regularly to model preclinical/clinical data.

Ok. My main objective of this post was to share some resources that are available to learn model data using NONMEM. In addition to the above discussion group, I have learnt immensely from the following resources.

a. Resources by Nick Holford: These course materials are freely available with enough background information to start performing population PKPD analysis.

  1. Pharmacometrics
  2. Advanced Pharmacometrics

b.Resource Facility for Population Pharmacokinetics[RFPK] – When accessing this site, you will have to fill a short questionnaire before downloading or viewing the tutorials/ presentations.

  1. Tutorials
  2. Presentations
  3. Datasets

c. Nonlinear mixed effect models: an overview and update [PDF]

d. Laboratory of Applied Pharmacokinetics (LAPK) teaching resources by Roger Jeliffe.

  1. New Advances in PK/PD Modeling [PDF]
  2. Pop PK: Parametric & Non parametric Approaches [PDF]
  3. Bayes Theorem and Other PK resources [PDF]

e. Pharmacometrics by ACCP

f. Regulatory Guidances

  1. US FDA Population Pharmacokinetics [PDF]
  2. EMEA Guideline on Reporting the Results of Population Pharmacokinetic Analyses [PDF]

If you know of more resources that can be added to this list, please feel free to provide the information by way of comments. Good night!

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

great! Thx for your sharing!I'm a graduate student from University of Science and Technology of China.Recently my main work focus on PK modeling.Can you give me your contact information(like MSN or Email)?
My email address is ustc.pharm@gmail.com

AM Lexi said...

Thanks for stopping by. I have sent you an email from my gmail account. Have fun modeling!

Anonymous said...

I became interested in PK/PD modeling recently and found your post very useful! Thank you very much for sharing!

I would like to do some practice with NONMEN, but find it is now a commercial software owned by ICON. I wonder if there is any free version available for students? Thank you!

AM Lexi said...

Thanks for your note. I dont think there is a free version of NONMEM available. Alternatively, you can try using Monolix which is available freely.

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much for your prompt response! It seems WinNonLin and NONMEN are the two most popular softwares used in industry. I will play with Monolix then. Thanks again for your help!

AM Lexi said...

No problem. You are right about WinNonlin and NONMEM. Once the modeling concept is understood, I believe that learning a software and terminology shouldnt be a major problem.

Anonymous said...

Hi Ganesh,

This is raghav working in drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics,
These resources are very useful and can u please help me in finding some basics about PK modelig and also how to acheive it using winnonlin. Also please help me in PD modeling .
MY gmail ID is raghavchowdary@gmail.com

fakkys said...

hi ganesh, just yesterday i attended the nonmem workshop conducted by PAGIN in India.when i google , i got your blog..really very very interesting and useful.really very happy to enter into the pkpk world.would really appreciate if could send some basic stuffs/materials related to nonmem that could be sueful for me. mymail id - fakkys@rediffmail.com
fakrudeen@orchidpharma.com

thanks in advance for your obligation.

Anonymous said...

I just started an internship with the hope of learning PK modelling. Thank you for your post, it's realy helpful

Anonymous said...

one needs to be a genius to grasp the ppt document (c). I hope i stay motivated for the rest of my internship on PK modelling.

Learning PK/PD said...

Hi, Ganesh, very very useful information. Thank you for sharing. I am in Cincy area as well and is trying to get in the PK/PD field. I have a doctoral degree in pharmacology but don't have any direct experience. I feel that it is hard to get in this field as a starter. I actually talked with Dr Vinks for a possible position in his division but again since I don't have any experience, I cannot be recruited. I really wish to get in this field. Any suggestions?

AM Lexi said...

Anon 8:31 and 8:33 AM, Thanks for your comments. Nice to hear that you are pursuing internship in PK modeling. I am sure you will do great.

Min, Thanks for stopping by. I would recommend trying to gain some postdoctoral experience doing modeling either in academia,industry or FDA. You can email me if you need more specific info.

Unknown said...

Hi Ganesh

I really find this information useful. I am a Graduate in DMPK in Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research. I have background in Biotechnology and Biocehmical Engineering. Would it be fine If I and my associate use information provided by you to learn some concepts in NONMEM and PK/PD Modeling?

Thanks
Manish

AM Lexi said...

Hi Manish,

Thanks for your comment. Sure, you can use these resources. No problem at all.

Cheers

Wei said...

Hi, Ganesh,

I just jot my PhD in pharmacolgoy and have a MS in computer science. I used mathematical modeling in my dissertation research and a software engineer for 6 years before. I would like to go into PD/PK modeling. Would you please give some guidance how to purse? where to apply? Thanks SO much

Wei

Anonymous said...

Hi Ganesh,

I am a system biologists ,working on developing growth models for bacteria. I am now inclined to work on PK?PD modeling and I have no pharma background. Can you mail me few materials if you have to smithhegde@gmail.com and some tips/suggestions as to how to start?
Thank you.

untitled said...

Hi,
I am a chemical engg graduate student at the University of Florida. I recently took up a course on PK and I found it to be very interesting and I tried getting some details regarding pop-pk tutorials and came across your website. Thanks a lot. Please keep posting.

Anonymous said...

Just a small precision though, WinNonlin is for NCA only, from Pharsight you want to use NLME (Non Linear Mixed Effects) based on the new QRPEM (Quasi-Random Parametric Expectation Maximization), it's now part of the Phoenix Suite, along with WinNonlin and other simulation tools.
http://www.pharsight.com/products/prod_phoenix_nlme_home.php

It's way easier to get into Population Modelling with NLME, NONMEM it's a pain of a learning curve. NLME is very "visual", you can drag and drop elements into the model and the math writes itself in the background, create rules for your data, save templates, share workflows, and it's blistering fast on 4 cores already, no doubt it's probably the best out there: http://blog.learnpkpd.com/2011/05/26/phoenix-nlme-software-review-part-3/

I believe it's free for students. Teachers need to apply from the website requesting an ATL, (Academic Teaching License).

Have fun!

Vishal Pendharkar said...

Many thanks...Please keep updating..

Vishal Pendharkar said...

Many Thanks...keep updating..

Vishal Pendharkar said...

Many Thanks

Vishal Pendharkar said...

Many thanks

Dr. Manushree said...

Which is the group you are talking about? Can I (graduate student) join the group as I want to learn and use NONMEM for my research. Please reply me at-manushree.bharadwaj@okstate.edu

Thanks,
Manushree Bharadwaj

AM Lexi said...

Manushree,

Thanks for stopping by. Not sure what group you are referring to above. Let me know and I will try to help out.

Cheers!