Drug Dosing in Pregnant Women: Challenges and Opportunities in Using Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling and Simulations.

Abstract

The unmet medical need of providing evidence-based pharmacotherapy for pregnant women is recognized by the regulatory bodies. Physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling offers an attractive platform to quantify anticipated changes in the pharmacokinetics (PKs) of drugs during pregnancy. Recent publications applying a pregnancy PBPK module to the prediction of maternal and fetal exposure of drugs are summarized. Future opportunities to use PBPK models to predict breast milk exposure and assess human fetotoxicity risks are presented.