A program for the optimum design of pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, drug metabolism and drug–drug interaction models

Planning any experiment includes issues such as how many samples are to be taken and their location given some predictor variable. Often a model is used to explain these data; hence including this formally in the design will be beneficial for any subsequent parameter estimation and modelling. A number of criteria for model oriented experiments, which maximise the information content of the collected data are available. In this paper we present a program, Optdes, to investigate the optimal design of pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, drug metabolism and drug–drug interaction models. Using the developed software the location of either a predetermined number of design points (exact designs) or together with the proportion of samples at each point (continuous designs) can be determined. Local as well as Bayesian designs can be optimised by either D- or A-optimality criteria. Although often the optimal design cannot be applied for practical reasons, alternative designs can be readily evaluated.