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Pharmacology · Pharmacokinetics · continued

Half-life, steady state, and accumulation worked through posts 121–131

This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.

MI
m.ibarraTL215 Jun 2025#121
MH
ms_hollowayTL4Mass spectrometrist15 Jun 2025#122

I would keep half-life and the decision it usually gets used for separate in this thread. They are related and they are not the same question, and merging them is why the last one went badly.

0 likes 13mo
MB
m.brobergTL215 Jun 2025#123

Building on post #122 rather than restating it.

Where two sources give different half-lives, check the study design before deciding either is wrong. Sampling duration, assay sensitivity and population all move the number.

1 like 13mo
SL
s.leclercTL4 Moderator16 Jun 2025#124
logbook_erin, post #11: Post #10 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different. Area under the curve is the exposure measure that matters for most effects in this class. Peak concentration matters more for tolerability. Go to post

On half-life the community has more anecdote than the confidence in this thread implies, and I include my own contribution in that.

7 likes in reply to #11 13mo
JS
j.steinerTL216 Jun 2025#125

The practical version of half-life is three sentences long. The rigorous version is three pages and reaches the same conclusion with the conditions attached.

12 likes 13mo
AR
a.reyesTL4 Admin16 Jun 2025 · edited#126

This settles it for me, at least until somebody posts a reason it should not.

26 likes 13mo
PM
p.mbekiTL216 Jun 2025#127

A pharmacokinetic model fitted to trial data describes the population studied. Applying it to somebody outside the enrolled range is an extrapolation, and the model will not tell you it is.

It is the sort of thing that seems obvious in retrospect and was not at the time.

0 likes 13mo
NM
n.moreauTL216 Jun 2025#128
r.venkatesan, post #24: Post #21 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit. Metabolism for peptide drugs is proteolytic rather than hepatic in the usual sense, which is why the cytochrome interaction questions that dominate small-molecule pharmacology mostly do not apply. Go to post

Steady state is approached in roughly four to five half-lives. For a compound with a week-long half-life that is four to five weeks, which is where the escalation interval in the trials comes from.

That has been true for the cases I have seen and I have not seen many.

4 likes in reply to #24 13mo
TN
t.ndiayeTL217 Jun 2025#129
isotonic_sheet, post #26: Speaking only to half-life as I have actually seen it, rather than as it is usually described: the effect is real, it is smaller than the thread suggests, and the variance between people is larger than the effect. Go to post

Post #127 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.

Metabolism for peptide drugs is proteolytic rather than hepatic in the usual sense, which is why the cytochrome interaction questions that dominate small-molecule pharmacology mostly do not apply.

8 likes in reply to #26 13mo
AF
a.friskTL217 Jun 2025#130
ambient_review, post #55: Narrowing post #54, because the general version has more than one answer. A pharmacokinetic model fitted to trial data describes the population studied. Applying it to somebody outside the enrolled range is an extrapolation, and the model will not tell you it is. Go to post

Half-life looks different depending on whether you are reading the primary literature or the summaries of it, and the difference is not in our favour.

19 likes in reply to #55 13mo
GO
g.oyelaranTL217 Jun 2025#131

If someone has run half-life properly I would rather read that than my own reconstruction of it. Posting mine only because the thread has gone quiet.

11 likes 13mo

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