Uppsala University: Popular summer school in Pharmacometrics continues to expand

Every year, the Uppsala Pharmacometrics Summer School brings doctoral students from all over the world to Uppsala Biomedical Center. The 2022 summer school, the tenth so far, is also the largest to date with close to forty participants. During two intensive weeks, the PhD students participate in lectures, work shops and poster sessions. They also have the opportunity to experience a selection of what Uppsala and the region has to offer.

“The summer school is a great opportunity to introduce PhD students to both Uppsala University and our research environment. Since our first event in 2011, the meeting place has continued to expand and is today generating important goodwill towards other research groups in our field, while also consolidating our already strong base for future post doc recruitments,” says Mats Karlsson, Professor of Pharmacometrics.

The summer school agenda includes courses on how predictors can describe differences between patients as well as how exposure to drugs can be linked to effects. The PhD students are also encouraged to contribute problems based on their current research. A guest lecturer from the industry provides personal perspectives on the profession, but the schedule primarily includes lectures by researchers at Uppsala University’s Department of Pharmacy.

“Our pharmacometrics environment at Uppsala University still lacks equivalent in the academic world. More than seventy PhD students have defended their dissertations in our corridors, which today gather almost forty pharmacists, chemists, biologists, system developers and statisticians whose results and software are used all throughout the world. The fact that we utilise our methods and models during the summer school naturally contributes to further implementation,” states Mats Karlsson.

In 2001, Uppsala University named Mats Karlsson the world’s first Professor of Pharmacometrics. At the time, the industry was not fully convinced of the usefulness of the field, Twenty years later, the discipline is an established success factor in international pharmacy. Most major pharmaceutical companies have their own departments, and when the European Medicines Agency recently calculated the economic importance of pharmacometrics, the amounts turned out almost astronomical.

“Our field is experiencing an extremely positive development. More and more universities worldwide are investing in pharmacometric research. In the USA and Spain, summer schools are arranged that follow our model, and that the great values ​​our results generate for society is becoming increasingly clear, with health economists also approaching us, gives us every reason to face the future with optimism.”