Pediatric Drug Development
The evolution of the pediatric regulatory environment has increased the demand to develop a common scientific-based approach that is acceptable to global regulatory authorities. It is crucial to create a thoughtful plan to support efficient pediatric drug discovery and development to ensure safe and effective medicines for children. Typical challenges encountered in a pediatric program include:
- Enrollment challenges due to small populations and multiple sponsors targeting the same population
- Burden of research procedures
- Limitation in use of placebo and lack of active comparators
- Physiological differences across the entire pediatric population
- Bridging of knowledge from adults to pediatrics
Certara has unique and extensive capabilities and experience to address these challenges and help set up your pediatric program for success. With experience working on over 100 pediatric programs, our experience in pediatric drug development is unparalleled. Our multi-disciplinary team of experts in pediatric practices provides you with end-to-end, integrated solutions, including:
- Strategic planning of pediatric study plans (PSPs) and paediatric investigation plans (PIPs)
- Pediatric clinical trial study design
- Clinical pharmacology strategy and stewardship of complex pediatric programs
- Real world evidence
- Juvenile toxicology
- Innovative modeling and simulation, characterizing PK, PD, disease progression, safety and efficacy
- Regulatory interactions specific to pediatric development including Type C or Type F (FDARA) meetings with FDA and scientific advice with EMA
- Age-appropriate pediatric formulations
RACE for the Children Act went into effect on August 18, 2020
With the RACE for Children Act, the FDA is now authorized to require sponsors to submit an agreed initial Pediatric Study Plan (iPSP) with an original NDA or BLA oncology product that may target the growth or progression of a pediatric cancer. New cancer therapies with orphan-designated indications will no longer be exempt from PREA.
The iPSP must include an outline of the planned pediatric investigation(s) and any planned request for deferral or waiver with supporting documentation. According to the guidance by the FDA, a sponsor must submit the iPSP no later than 60 calendar days after the date of the end-of-phase 2 meeting.
What are the important things you need to know about the RACE Act? How can you set up your pediatric program for success?
Set your pediatric program up for success
Certara scientists and experts meet the needs of the regulators, enhance feasibility of the studies, and increase safety for pediatrics practices.
Certara’s quantitative methods leverage sparse data and prior information from pre-clinical studies, adult trials, literature data, and pediatric studies of related indications or drug actions. We build that knowledge into models of patient physiology, drug actions and trial characteristics, which enable us to develop and iterate clinical trial design and explore alternative dosing scenarios, in silico patient responses, drug-drug interactions, and whole trial outcomes
Our consultants also use the Simcyp™ Pediatric PBPK Simulator, the industry’s most sophisticated physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) technology for modeling drug performance and assessing drug-drug interactions in neonates, infants, and children. The Simcyp Pediatric PBPK Simulator, routinely used by the Simcyp Consortium’s 35 leading pharmaceutical companies, contains extensive libraries on demographics, developmental physiology, and the ontogeny of drug elimination pathways. It is used by all of the industry’s leading pharma companies.
Regulatory writing, publishing and submission support for your PIP and PSP
Our regulatory science expertise in pediatric practices, programs, and development spans more than 15 therapeutic areas, including oncology, infectious diseases, and cardiovascular disorders. Core competencies include consulting, writing, preparing and managing documents, including pediatric investigational plans (PIPs) and pediatric study plans (PSPs) through global regulatory processes, and authoring scientific and commercial documents.
Oftentimes, Certara will support the PIP/PSP development plan by creating a population PK (popPK) model using adult data scaled to pediatrics. That model will integrate a range of maturation and disease factors with allometric scaling to set the best dose for the first pediatric trial cohort.
Furthermore, our GlobalSubmit™ clinical trial operations technology facilitates the eCTD submittal process, providing scalability and consistency for sponsors.
Dr. Cheung has over a decade of experience working in the pharmaceutical industry at AstraZeneca, with her role as Senior Pharmacometrician and Project manager of AZ Paediatric working group. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Manchester, on the topic of Structural Identifiability Analysis in Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Models.
Dr. Patrick F. Smith is President, Certara Drug Development Solutions, where he leads a global team of drug development scientists that creates value for clients across the entire life cycle and ultimately accelerates patient access to medicines. With more than 20 years of drug development experience, Patrick has worked across all phases of drug development with deep expertise in infectious diseases, oncology, and inflammation as well as novel early development program design and applying modeling and simulation to solve critical development problems.
Trevor leads the development of Simcyp pediatric software designed to predict dose, drug-concentration time profiles and likely drug response from birth onwards. His current areas of research focus on pediatric oral drug absorption & biologics, ontogeny of transporters and also special population’s particularly hepatic impairment. He has over 50 research publications and 7 book contributions in the areas of pharmacokinetics, drug metabolism, pediatric drug therapy and hospital Pharmacy
Dr. Cheung has over a decade of experience working in the pharmaceutical industry at AstraZeneca, with her role as Senior Pharmacometrician and Project manager of AZ Paediatric working group. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Manchester, on the topic of Structural Identifiability Analysis in Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Models.
Dr. Patrick F. Smith is President, Certara Drug Development Solutions, where he leads a global team of drug development scientists that creates value for clients across the entire life cycle and ultimately accelerates patient access to medicines. With more than 20 years of drug development experience, Patrick has worked across all phases of drug development with deep expertise in infectious diseases, oncology, and inflammation as well as novel early development program design and applying modeling and simulation to solve critical development problems.
Trevor leads the development of Simcyp pediatric software designed to predict dose, drug-concentration time profiles and likely drug response from birth onwards. His current areas of research focus on pediatric oral drug absorption & biologics, ontogeny of transporters and also special population’s particularly hepatic impairment. He has over 50 research publications and 7 book contributions in the areas of pharmacokinetics, drug metabolism, pediatric drug therapy and hospital Pharmacy