Charter

The Pharmacokinetic/Pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) Expert Meeting (PK/PD-Expertentreffen) was founded in 1995 with the objective to serve as a discussion forum for PK/PD scientists coming from industry, academia, CROs or else. Discussions of topics related to daily drug development challenges take place in an informal, familiar atmosphere and over the years have constantly attracted approx. 70-90 interested attendants mainly, but not exclusively, from German-speaking countries. Today the meeting language is English.

The meeting takes place yearly at the end of April / early May and usually starts with a ‘come together buffet dinner’ on a Thursday evening. Three half-day sessions follow (Friday morning & afternoon, Saturday morning) with presentations and associated discussions covering PK/PD aspects of early to late stage drug development. The topics can include both state-of-the-art but also routine applications related to the fields of Clinical Pharmacology, Translational Medicine, and Pharmacometrics and take regulatory aspects of these into account. Speakers are encouraged to structure their presentations in a way that a lively discussion can emerge around a presented topic so that learning from each other is emphasized. Hence the meeting not only provides an opportunity for peer-to-peer interactions, but is also a great opportunity for beginners and newcomers in the PK/PD field ‘to meet and learn from the expert’.

The PK/PD Expert Meeting is held under the auspices of AGAH (Association for Applied Human Pharmacology / Arbeitsgemeinschaft für angewandte Humanpharmakologie e.V.), a scientific medical non-profit organization. The meeting itself is prepared by an Organizing Committee (OC) consisting of senior researchers, all working actively in the fields of preclinical and clinical PK/PD. They select upcoming topics from proposals voiced by the audience at a previous meeting or after feeling the pulse of the scientific community. For each meeting three umbrella topics of high relevance to a PK/PD specialist are defined. Competent speakers to cover these topics are then identified and invited to the meeting. In the first announcement letter for an upcoming meeting, speakers willing to contribute are also solicited from the PK/PD community at large. The web site (www.pkpd-expertentreffen.de) provides insight on what topics have been covered over the years.

Since 2012 generous donations have enabled the OC of the PK/PD Expert Meeting to reward outstanding contributions to the PK/PD field by young scientists with the Hans Günter Schäfer Award (cash amount of 1.000 EUR plus free meeting participation) issued in memory of the original initiator of the PK/PD Expert Meeting. In addition, a limited number of young PK/PD scientists (graduate and post-graduate student level) can be supported by waiving the participation fee.