Model Building and Parameter Estimation

Andrew Hooker, Mats Karlsson, Sebastian Ueckert
 

Pharmacometric models are based on (patho-) physiological and pharmacological knowledge. The complexity and heterogeneity of biological data makes the knowledge about and development of statistical data analysis methods a central part of this scientific field. There are many benefits to using pharmacometric models in the analysis of data from clinical trials, for example the ability to handle sparse data and to integrate different types of observations into one model; however, these models are complex and intrinsically non-linear which presents technical challenges in model building and estimation.

One main challenge is to reduce the time it takes to develop these models. With complex, non-linear models and data from a clinical trial that can have thousands of data points from hundreds of patients with multiple response variables, computer runtimes become non-ignorable. Generally, run-times can be divided into short (minutes), intermediate (hours to days) and long (days to months). The number of runs in a complete analysis tends to range between 30 and many hundred. We are investigating the implementation and automation of important modelling tasks through the use of new algorithms developed in our research group. Additionally, we are developing new methods of model building and new algorithm development that can shorten run times and the number of steps needed in the model building process.

Other areas of active research include the influence on parameter estimates of single observations and rational and statistically correct algorithms for adding explanatory variables, .i.e. covariates, to the models.