The 2020 Population Approach Group Korea (PAGK) Annual Meeting was held on November 27 with presenters attending at the WesternLife Hotel, Iksan, Jeolla-do while other participants joining the meeting on-line. The PAGK is a research group affiliated with Korean Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, of which members (currently >180) join from various sectors such as academia (clinical pharmacology, clinical medicine, and pharmacy), hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, CROs, and government agencies.

The plenary speech was delivered by Prof. Yangjin Kim, Professor at the Department of Mathematics at Konkuck University, titled “Mathematical modelling of tumor growth and signaling network, and development of anti-cancer drugs and therapeutic strategies”. The topics in the Young Researchers’ Sessions included physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model for clozapine in Korean patients with schizophrenia, misuse of the Michaelis-Menten for prediction of in vivo clearance for drugs, and microphysiological systems for predicting human pharmacokinetics.

Two PhD students of CCADD, Siun Kim and Tae Kyu Chung, presented their population pharmacokinetic and pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modeling studies in the trainee session. Prof. Howard Lee also attended the PAGK annual meeting on-site to support and encourage Siun and Tae Kyu to expand their networks. The whole presentations of the two students can be watched at the Youtube channel of CCADD.

Prof. Howard Lee spoke about the utility of artificial intelligence (AI) in clinical drug development at the KDDW or Korean Digestive Disease Week 2020, organized by the Korean Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, on November 20, 2020, held at the Swiss Grand Hotel Convention Center. The conference was aired online and the program is shown below:

The title of Prof. Lee's presentation was 'Artificial Intelligence in Drug Development: Clinical Pharmacology Perspective', and he talked about the potentials and pitfalls of AI in clinical drug development. In his talk, Prof. Lee emphasized the fact that most of the AI technologies that have been ever adopted in drug development are primarily in the area of drug discovery, whereas the preclinical and clinical developments have not witnessed active adoption of AI technologies although this trend can change all of a sudden. Particularly, Prof. Lee set aside the one-thirds of his presentation as to how CCADD could have developed a series of machine learning models to reduce the dimensionality of eligibility criteria to assess clinical trial feasibility using several feature selection algorithms. Below is the photo of those who have contributed to the work Prof. Lee introduced in his talk at the conference. 

Prof. Howard Lee gave an invited presentation at the annual conference 2020, sponsored by the Korean Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics. In his presentation, Prof. Lee summarized the various activities to develop therapeutics, mostly drug repositioning, and vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. Prof. Lee's talk was timely in that Pfizer recently announced the extraordinary efficacy seen in their phase III clinical trial with an mRNA vaccine that they had co-developed with BioNTech, a German biotech firm. Prof. Lee also discussed how the private-public partnership to develop vaccines to prevent COVID-19 could change the horizon of new drug development post-pandemic. 

Prof. Howard Lee gave a talk at a pre-meeting workshop for the American College of Clinical Pharmacology Annual Meeting 2020 on September 16, 2020 (US EST). The title of Prof. Lee's presentation was 'Early Phase Clinical Trials in Korea'. In this talk, Prof. Lee explained how and why Korea has become one of the most attractive countries for clinical drug development, particularly during the past two decades. 

Prof. Lee also introduced the audience to some of his previous works in innovative clinical trial methodologies such as the microtracing technology, which he has spearheaded to make a useful clinical drug development tool in Korea. In association with this, Prof. Lee discussed two of his papers, one in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, the other Clinical and Translational Science, two reputable journals in clinical pharmacology. 

Six undergraduate students (Sung Jong Kim, Hwe Won Kim, Jinyeong Yang, Song Yeon Oh, Chae Jeong Lee, and Yura Hwang) joined CCADD for the 2020 Winter Smart Internship, and they will spend the next 8 weeks in exploring the research environment at CCADD while having opportunities to participate in the ongoing research projects.

Sung Jong Kim is a fourth-year undergraduate student at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, double majoring in Molecular Biotechnology and English-Korean Interpretation and Translation Studies. Studying biology and biotechnologies, Sung Jong has developed a broad interest in pharmacology and computer science. He is looking forward to learning NONMEM, an analysis program for pharmacokinetic pharmacodynamic (PKPD) modeling, during his internship program.

Song Yeon Oh is also a senior student at HanKuk University of Foreign Studies, and has studied Environmental Science. Song Yeon's research interests include applying artificial intelligence (AI) technologies into the pharmaceutical area to make drug development processes more efficient. During the internship program, she wants to learn methods to analyze medical data using computer language, such as Python and R, by participating in the CCADD's current projects.

Chae Jeong Lee is a second-year student at HanKuk University of Foreign Studies, majoring in Biomedical Engineering and Computer and Electronic Systems Engineering. Being familiar with C and Python, Chae Jeong wants to participate in CCADD's current AI projects such as those awarded by National Institute of Food Drug Safety Evaluation (NIFDS) and South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy (MOTIE). Through this winter internship program, she is looking forward to learning R to improve her coding skills.

Hwe Won Kim is a fourth-year undergraduate student at Konkuk University. She studies Converged Material Engineering and Environmental Engineering. Prior to the internship program at CCADD, Hwe Won worked as an intern researcher in the Department of Stem cell and Regenerative Biotechnology laboratory and has become interested in pharmacology and AI technologies. Through the internship program, she is looking forward to learning the basics of clinical pharmacology and AI algorithms applicable to pharmaceutical area.

Jinyeong Yang is a second-year student at College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University. Jinyeong was involved in research project project to develop a liquid bandage for patients with atopy to prevent potential secondary infections. Through her past experience, Jinyeong has become more interested in PK, PD, and development process of a drug. She is looking forward to learning the pharmacology and drug development process, as well as experiencing the research environment in graduate school. 

Yura Hwang is a senior student at Pusan University with a major in Molecular Biology and a minor in Chemistry. Previously, Yura worked in PRG S&T, a pharmaceutical start-up, where she has developed an interest in theoretical and computational methods to describe variability in PK. She is looking forward to learning NONMEM during her internship program.

This 2020 winter internship program will provide participants with opportunities to learn clinical pharmacology, machine learning algorithms, and computer languages for data analysis as shown below. CCADD wholeheartedly welcomes the 6 intern students, and hopes them to enjoy, learn, and experience as much as they want and can during the rest of their internship programs.

This year's American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) PharmSci 360 was held in San Antonio, Texas, on November 3 - 6, 2019. AAPS PharmSci 360 is a conference that provides a dynamic forum for the exchange of knowledge among pharmaceutical scientists. Around 6,500 attendees gathered from all over the world to attend this year's conference, where ~1,500 abstracts were presented and >100 individual sessions were provided. Tae Kyu Chung and Siun Kim, two students at CCADD, also joined the conference as a poster author and presenter.

Tae Kyu's poster contained the result of a population pharmacokinetic (PK) modeling exercise of GC1118, a fully human IgG1 monoclonal antibody that is currently under clinical development for the treatment of solid tumor, entitled 'A Target-Mediated Drug Disposition Population Pharmacokinetic Modeling of GC1118, a Novel Anti-Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Antibody, in Patients with Refractory Solid Tumors.'  He proposed a two-compartment target mediated drug disposition model, which adequately characterized the PK characteristics of GC1118. On the other hand, Siun proposed a population pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PK-PD) model that adequately described the concentration-time-kPCD (1000 * % ¹³Carbon dose excreted per minute) profiles of orally administered YH12852, a 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor 4 agonist currently under clinical development for the treatment of gastrointestinal motility disorders. Based on the final PK-PD model, Siun found that YH12852 improves one's gastrointestinal motility, resulting in an accelerated gastric emptying and early rise in kPCD values. The poster presentation by Tae Kyu and Siun were well received: many poster-goers, including professors, Ph.D. students, pharmacists, pharmacometricians from Pfizer and Merck, came along and questioned the nitty-gritty details about the models summarized in the posters.

By participating in the conference, Tae Kyu and Siun were able to better understand the recent trend in drug development, state-of-art technologies adopted and implemented in new drug development, and regulatory perspectives on clinical pharmacology strategies. Joining the conference was a great opportunity for learning, networking, and developing their professional careers. 

Prof. Howard Lee was invited to the 2019 annual congress of the European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics or EACPT2019, held on June 29 - July 2, in Stockholm, Sweden. Prof. Lee gave an overview of the current polypharmacy status in Korea. Polypharmacy, commonly defined as prescribing 6 or more drugs concomitantly on a single prescription, can make patients vulnerable to adverse drug reactions caused by drug interactions. Furthermore, polypharmacy can undermine the financial wellness of the health insurance system. 

In Korea, the proportion of polypharmacy has decreased from 65.8% in early 2000 to 43.7% in 2013. However, polypharmacy is still a big health issue in Korea, particularly in younger children (1-9 years) and the elderly. Likewise, low income is strongly associated with polypharmacy in the elderly in Korea. Currently, there is no national guideline or measure implemented to curb polypharmacy in Korea. Therefore, policies and nationwide efforts, along with educational campaigns for not only patients, but physicians, led by clinical pharmacology professionals, are to be put into practice to keep patients from unwanted health problems caused by polypharmacy and to promote optimal drug therapy. Prof. Lee's talk was well received, followed by an interesting session of discussion at the meeting. A physician in the audience asked why polypharmacy is most common in early childhood in Korea, and Prof. Lee replied, "Prescribing antibiotics and other common cold medications is the major culprit."

The reception for EACPT2019 took place at the Golden Hall, Stockholm City Center. This hall is the place for the ball after the annual Nobel Banquet in the Blue Hall at the City Center. Below are a couple of photos taken at the reception with other Korean participants.