Quantitative systems pharmacology in model-informed drug development and therapeutic use

Quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP) is an emerging discipline uniting bottom-up approaches from systems biology with top-down approaches from Pharmacometrics. QSP aims to generate highly granular, fit-for-purpose representations of biological systems to study questions arising along the value chain from early drug discovery & development to therapeutic use of (new) drugs. This review articles gives an introduction into the field of QSP and highlights recent developments and advancements. In particular, a focus is laid on new research in QSP methodology as well as on research fields and therapeutic areas in which increased research activities were observed, i.e. pharmacokinetics and drug safety, cardiovascular diseases, central-nervous systems disorders and infectious diseases.