Stephan Schmidt, B.Pharm., Ph.D., F.C.P., an associate professor of pharmaceutics, has been appointed director of the Center for Pharmacometrics and Systems Pharmacology in the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, effective Jan. 1, 2020.
As director, Schmidt will lead the center’s research and education programs, which focus on drug development and regulatory science. The center was established in 2011 has significantly expanded its footprint in the last decade with researchers located on the UF College of Pharmacy’s Orlando campus in Lake Nona and in Gainesville. UF scientists at the center are addressing major public health problems by bridging the knowledge gap between drug discovery and drug use in clinical practice through the use of computer models. Using these models also allows researchers to test drug outcomes in virtual patients without embarking in expensive and timely clinical trials.
“The Center for Pharmacometrics and Systems Pharmacology is supporting efforts to foster the availability of safe, efficacious and affordable drugs to patients,” Schmidt said. “I am honored to lead such an accomplished team of researchers and trainees who are recognized for their groundbreaking work in advancing drug development and regulatory science.”
A 2008 Ph.D. graduate of the UF College of Pharmacy, Schmidt completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Leiden University in the Netherlands before returning to Florida. He joined the college’s faculty as an assistant professor in 2012. Schmidt’s research focuses on the development and application of mechanism-based disease-drug-trial models for chronic-progressive diseases and special patient populations that integrate available pre-clinical, clinical and pharmacogenetic data to identify the right drug for the right patient at the right dose and time.
Schmidt has published more than 85 peer-reviewed articles in highly respected journals in the clinical pharmacology arenas, as well as six book chapters and two textbooks on the application of quantitative analysis techniques in various therapeutic areas. In 2017, he was installed as the inaugural Certara Endowed Professor in the UF College of Pharmacy.