CPT: Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology 2.0

CPT: Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology (PSP) was launched by the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics in 2012. Piet van der Graaf, PhD, PharmD, the first Editor‐in‐Chief (EIC) of the journal, built an impressive editorial team of which I was proud to be part of since the beginning. In August 2018, the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Board of Directors and Dr van der Graaf approached me to ask whether I would consider taking the role of EIC. Given PSP's success story, I was thrilled and began putting together my own vision for pursuing and expanding the journal. I officially took over the role EIC of PSP in October 2018 and wish to thank Dr van der Graaf and the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Board for their trust.

Here, I want to present the new Editorial Team of PSP and to share my vision for PSP 2.0 with our readers.

In his inaugural editorial,1 Dr van der Graaf recalled the mission of PSP and “the importance of integration and combination of the disciplines of Pharmacometrics (PMX) and Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP).” Then, while leaving his role as EIC, he wrote another editorial to “assess how the journal and the model‐informed drug discovery and development communities have done in bringing together PMX and QSP.”2 He was modest and did not really highlight how much his involvement was important for the success of the journal. Indeed, from the first publication in September 2012 to September 2018, there have been 485 publications in PSP, 327 (67%) being original research articles and 44 (9%) tutorials. PSP's 2017 CiteScore was 3.00, with a Scopus ranking of 49/230 in the Pharmacology (Medical) category and 20/238 in the Modeling and Simulation category.

Given the established success of PSP, I proposed to keep the same spirit and management with only smooth changes in the Editorial Team. I was pleased when all of the previous members of the Editorial Team accepted to stay on with me: Deputy Editor‐in‐Chief Lena Friberg, PhD, Uppsala University and Associate Editors Stephen Duffull, PhD, University of Otago; Douglas Lauffenburger, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Lang Li, PhD, The Ohio State University College of Medicine; Donald E. Mager, PhD, PharmD, University of Buffalo; Vikram Sinha, PhD, Merck & Co., Inc.; and Ping Zhao, PhD, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The following two new Associate Editors agreed to join the team to expand the scope of editorial expertise: Jonathan French, ScD, from Metrum Reseach Group to cover statistics, and Eric Sobie, PhD, from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to cover systems pharmacology. I wish to thank the entire Editorial Team for their enthusiasm and active participation in the journal.

One of my primary goals is to increase articles from outside the United States and Europe. Indeed, of the 97 publications in 2017, 90% came from the United States or Europe (54% and 36%, respectively). We will actively reach out to PMX groups from several areas of the world and invite them to submit perspectives, editorials, and original research articles, as publication fees may be reduced or waived for articles from developing countries.3 Recently, PSP published a report4 of the first congress from the Iberoamerican Pharmacometrics Network, which was founded in 2017 as the association of research groups from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Spain, and Uruguay and is interested in the promotion and advancement of pharmacometrics in Latin America. PSP will also encourage submissions from and be more visible at the Word Conference on Pharmacometrics,5 the next meeting of which is to be held in 2020 in Cape Town, South Africa.

A second goal is to welcome more articles and tutorials on methods and software tools in PMX and QSP, so the journal will be a natural reference for new (and existing) members of our ever‐growing community. In February 2019, a new virtual issue “Methods and Software Tools” was launched and already has 113 articles. The authors of main software used in the field have been invited to write tutorials, and many have agreed. We will also reach the Statistics and Pharmacometrics Special Interest Group (SxP SIG) of both the American Statistical Association and the International Society of Pharmacometrics,6 created in 2016, to increase publications and tutorials in that area.

Given the growing importance of model‐informed drug discovery and development (MIDD), the new virtual issue “Regulatory MIDD” was launched with 17 publications. Notably, it includes an article from the Office of Biostatistics and Clinical Pharmacology, Center for Drug Evaluation, of the China National Medical Products Administration7 as well as articles from the European Medicines Agency, the US Food and Drug Administration, and Japan's Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency.

In addition to the two recently launched virtual issues noted previously, the Editorial Team also decided to soon launch additional virtual issues on the following topics: biomedical informatics, statistics and pmx, and pregnancy.

Increasing the reproducibility of science8, 9, 10 is a global goal of scientists of this century, and PSP should participate in that movement. We will work toward enhancing and promoting the use of model repositories for all published articles, as keeping control files in supplementary material does not allow complete reproducibility. The Drug Disease Model Resources (DDMoRe) model repository could be one such option.11

To conclude, I will do my best, with the always supportive help of the Editorial Team and the journal staff, to develop and expand the journal, keeping in mind the scientific quality and spirit that Dr van der Graaf created as the first EIC. PSP should become the reference journal for PMX, QSP, and MIDD to publish our best work and cutting‐edge science in those fields. In doing so, we should always keep in mind the vision of Lew Sheiner: better use of quantitative approaches and models, for better development and use of drugs, to treat patients all over the world.

Funding

France Mentré receives honorarium from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics as Editor‐in‐Chief of CPT: Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology.

Conflict of Interest

The author declared no competing interests for this work.