Category: Global Collaboration

My First PAGE Experience: Learning, Sharing, and Connecting Through Pharmacometrics

My name is Aya Ismail, and I am a clinical pharmacologist based in Cairo, Egypt, working in the field of clinical research and one of the co-founders of the Pharmacometrics Africa Egypt Chapter. I was also a fellow in the Advanced Pharmacometrics Training (APT) 2025 cohort. In 2026, I had the opportunity to travel to Croatia with my colleague Allan Kengo to present our work at the Population Approach Group Europe (PAGE) 2026 conference. Attending the PAGE 2026 conference was a very special experience for me, as it was my first time attending. For the first time, I was not simply following discussions about PAGE, reading its abstracts, or hearing about the incredible scientific exchanges taking place within the pharmacometrics community. I was actually there surrounded by scientists whose work had inspired my own journey into pharmacometrics. As someone coming from Egypt and growing within the African pharmacometrics community, this experience felt particularly meaningful. For me, the experience was made even more meaningful by the opportunity to present our project as part of the APT 2025 cohort. With my colleague Allan Kengo, we presented our work as a poster, sharing the project we had developed throughout the fellowship. You can view our poster here. This opportunity was made possible through the support and funding of Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), which enabled us to attend PAGE and present our work. I am particularly grateful to Robin Eriksson from MMV and Wynand Smythe from Certara for their supervision and guidance throughout the

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Highlights from Pharmacometrics Africa at SCOMRA 2025

Pharmacometrics Africa is proud to have been well-represented at the Scientific Conference on Medical Product Regulation in Africa (SCoMRA) 2025. Many of our capacity building efforts were highlighted by team members and collaborators through presentations that helped showcase progress and our involvement  in strengthening the regulatory sciences in Africa. Strengthening Dossier Assessment Competencies to Accelerate Regulatory Harmonisation in Africa Stephanie Leigh (University of Witwatersrand) presented on the PMX Africa-led university-certified programme designed to strengthen clinical dossier assessment competencies across African national regulatory authorities. Her talk highlighted the continent’s capacity gaps and outlined how this 14-week distance-learning course—co-created by regulators, academia and global partners—has already trained more than 140 assessors from 10 countries. By combining competency-based education, case studies, practical evaluations and a Train-the-Trainer model, the initiative is building sustainable regulatory expertise, advancing reliance practices, and accelerating progress toward regulatory harmonisation across Africa. Arlo & Me: The Case for Open Access Regulatory Learning Opportunities At the conference, PMX Africa collaborator Gabriel McClelland (McClelland Creative) presented a compelling look at how ARLO — Access to Regulatory Learning Opportunities — can transform the way regulatory scientists discover and share knowledge. Drawing on platform insights and real-world examples, he highlighted ARLO’s ability to curate global learning resources using filters such as Global Benchmarking Tool (GBT) categories, content type, and region, while also addressing the current challenge: the abundance of high-value educational content that remains inaccessible simply because it is not shared.  Gabriel urged organisations and individuals to record their expertise, make learning assets accessible,

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Invitation: APT Program Final Presentations Webinar

On behalf of Pharmacometrics Africa and our partners, we invite you to join the final presentations of the 2025 Applied Pharmacometrics Training (APT) program. Over the past months, fellows from MSc, PhD, and postdoctoral backgrounds across African countries have taken part in an intensive program combining theoretical learning with hands-on research. Guided by a diverse group of partners across academia and industry, participants explored the application of pharmacometrics in research, development, and clinical contexts. Each fellow has been engaged in a team research project with one of our partners, applying advanced methodologies and working in collaboration with experienced scientists. Alongside their scientific work, participants have also developed leadership and communication skills, ensuring their findings are not only robust but also effectively shared. This webinar will present the outcomes of these projects. It is an opportunity to learn about the research conducted, hear reflections from the fellows, and engage with the broader network of collaborators who have supported the program. Date: Tuesday, 14 OctoberTime: 15:00 CEST (3h)Format: Online webinar Register Here We look forward to welcoming you to this session and sharing the closing stage of this year’s program.

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Reflections on the 2025 MPRINT Conference

The digital age has transformed how we learn, network and connect with colleagues and collaborators around the world. The Annual MPRINT (Maternal Pediatric Precision in Therapeutics Hub) 2025 conference, that took place from the 13th of May 2025 to the 25th of May 2025, demonstrated how powerful virtual collaboration can be. Hosted virtually by the MPRINT team, participants came from all over the globe. The team from the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI), led by Prof. Catriona Waitt (Principal Investigator, MILK-PBPK) and two PhD scholars – Davies Otieno and Joshua Kiptoo logged in from Kampala, Uganda and the 7-hour time difference did not deter us from participating in this important event.  The virtual conference was officially kicked off by a statement by Prof. Sara K. Quinney, who, apart from setting the tone for the rest of the conference, introduced an innovative way for participants to interact as the conference went on: a shared google document where we could add comments, questions and interact as the speakers shared insights on various topics revolving around fetomaternal therapeutics. A key take-home message from the first day emphasized the importance of predicting medication exposure to the infant—rather than waiting to measure actual drug concentrations—especially when long-term effects are not known. Proactively modeling exposure helps identify risks before irreversible harm occurs, enabling timely adjustments to maternal dosing or neonatal monitoring protocols. This approach could safeguard vulnerable infants in cases where delayed measurement could mean missing a window to mitigate metabolic disruptions, as demonstrated by altered infant gut microbiome after medication

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All about the Applied Pharmacometrics Training (APT) Fellowship 2025

Applications Closed! The Applied Pharmacometrics Training Fellowship is a collaboration between Pharmacometrics Africa, CP+ Associates, together with several pharma industry, consulting companies and academic partners. As described in our paper in CPT:PSP, this is an intensive doctoral-level fellowship program that upskills participants to conduct regulatory quality clinical pharmacology and pharmacometrics analyses that could inform decision making. The program, built on a framework developed by Pharmacometrics Africa and Certara, is an effort to increase the application of model-based drug development in Africa. Participation in this program provides opportunities to integrate work and education while facilitating the development of an international contact network. Consisting of an intensive 24-week virtual program, complemented by 2 week-long face-to-face sessions, fellows mainly work from their home location and interact via remote technology tools. The program provides online tutorials combined with hands-on project work in cooperation with partners from industry and academia. All projects end in a publishable unit, defined as a poster at a conference and/or a peer-reviewed manuscript. The Applied Pharmacometrics Training Fellowship – Africa Region aims to build scientific and leadership capability in Africa by enhancing the skills of local scientists and by facilitating knowledge transfer to their wider scientific communities. The relationships forged between the hosts of this program and the fellows’ home institutions will further the endeavour to create next-generation medicines to ease suffering and improve quality of life for patient populations around the world. Successful participants in this program are eligible for mentorship and coaching towards employment in research centres in

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[Perspective Paper] Addressing health equity for breastfeeding women: primaquine for Plasmodium vivax radical cure

Read the paper here This article summarizes the clinical and modelling evidence for a favourable benefit:risk evaluation of P. vivax radical cure with primaquine for breastfeeding women without the need for infant G6PD testing, supporting a change in policy. This adjustment to current treatment guidelines would support health equity in regard to effective interventions to protect women and their children, enhance malaria control strategies, and advance P. vivax elimination. Abstract Plasmodium vivax malaria remains a global health challenge, with approximately 6.9 million estimated cases in 2022. The parasite has a dormant liver stage, the hypnozoite, which reactivates to cause repeated relapses over weeks, months, or years. These relapses erode patient health, contribute to the burden of malaria, and promote transmission. Radical cure to prevent relapses requires administration of an 8-aminoquinoline, either primaquine or tafenoquine. However, malaria treatment guidelines updated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in October 2023 restrict primaquine use for women breastfeeding children < 6 months of age, or women breastfeeding older children if their child is G6PD deficient or if the child’s G6PD status is unknown. Primaquine restrictions assume that 8-aminoquinoline exposures in breast milk would be sufficient to cause haemolysis in the nursing infant should they be G6PD deficient. WHO recommendations for tafenoquine are awaited. Notably, the WHO recommends that infants are breastfed for the first 2 years of life, and exclusively until 6 months old. Repeated pregnancies, followed by extended breastfeeding leaves women in P. vivax endemic regions potentially vulnerable to relapses for many years. This puts women’s health at risk, increases the malaria burden,

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