Faculty
The DDI Workshop Series was founded in 2010 as a private initiative of four experts in the field from academia and industry, intrigued by the notion that the field of drug-drug interactions (DDIs) is getting increasingly important and complex.
The Faculty members do have different academic and professional backgrounds, thereby complementing each other in their scientific and practical DDI experiences, perspectives and approaches.
Since 2018, the Faculty underwent two personal changes, and currently consists of 3 active Faculty members, and 2 past Faculty members.
For details, please refer to the respective information below.
Robert Hermann, MD, FCP
Robert underwent medical training at the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University in Frankfurt and obtained his M.D. (1982) and Ph.D. (1984). Thereafter, he specialised and earned accreditations as a board certified Anaesthesiologist and Clinical Pharmacologist. After 8 years in clinical medicine, he joined the pharmaceutical industry in 1990 and assumed over the years various expert and managing functions of increasing responsibility in Clinical Pharmacology, Translational- and Exploratory-Medicine, including VP and CMO roles. He and his teams contributed significantly to the clinical development and international regulatory approval of several products, including three “first-in-class” NMEs.
The scientific activities of Robert in the field of early clinical drug development are reflected by contributions to more than 100 publications, reviews, and book articles, many of them highly cited (> 4,000 citations, H-Index = 32, i10-Index = 63). He serves also as acting reviewer for various international Clinical Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacokinetic Peer Journals.
Robert is Fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology (FCP), founder member of the Association for Applied Human Pharmacology (AGAH), and member of the German Society for Pharmaceutical Medicine (DGPharMed), the European Respiratory Society (ERS), and the International Society for Aerosols in Medicine (ISAM).
He also served as a member and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology & Experimental Medicine (ITEM), Hannover, Germany, for more than a decade. In this capacity, Robert mentored the foundation of a dedicated respiratory experimental medicine group at ITEM, as well as the establishment of an environmental exposure unit for the conduct of well standardized allergen challenge studies (e.g. pollen studies in allergic rhinitis, etc.).
Robert is also co-founder and Faculty Member of the International Marbach Castle Drug-Drug Interaction Workshop series (established in 2010), which is dedicated to improve and disseminate the scientific knowledge about regulatory requirements and current scientific aspects on the preclinical and clinical investigation of drug-drug interactions.
Since 2008, Robert runs his own business and serves as an independent consultant to the pharmaceutical and biotech industry in the field of early clinical development as owner and managing director of cr.appliance (www.cr-appliance.com).
Ping Zhao, PhD
Ping obtained his BS in Pharmacy from Beijing Medical University in China in 1994, and his PhD in Pharmaceutics from University of Washington in Seattle, WA, USA in 2002.
Since then, Ping worked as a DMPK scientist at Pfizer in La Jolla CA (2002 – 2005), as a pharmacokineticist at Sonus Pharmaceuticals in Seattle (2005 – 2007), as a clinical pharmacologist at Amgen in Seattle (2008), and served as the Scientific Lead of PBPK (physiologically-based pharmacokinetic modeling) Program and Expert Pharmacologist at the Office of Clinical Pharmacology, US FDA in Silver Spring, MD (2008 – 2017).
At FDA, Ping led review of PBPK submissions in IND/NDA/BLAs. He was responsible for the review of more than 200 PBPK analyses in IND, NDA, and BLA submissions. More than 40 of these submissions had simulation results being used in product labels to support optimal use of the drugs. He championed PBPK regulatory research and engineered policies around PBPK, including authoring the agency’s first PBPK guidance (2016) and implementing evidence-based PBPK approaches in FDA’s drug-drug interaction guidances (2017). During his tenure at FDA, Ping served as liaison to coordinate regulatory applications of PBPK in addressing drug interaction and other clinical pharmacology issues with EMA, MHRA, and PMDA.
In June 2017, Ping joined the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, WA as a Senior Program Officer of Quantitative Sciences, where he applies pharmacology concepts and manages Model-informed Drug development (MiDD) efforts in programs funded by the foundation to academic centers, product development partners, and regulatory agencies around the world. He received many awards, published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles. He is currently an associate editor for the journal Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics-Pharmacometrics and Systems Pharmacology.
Amin Rostami-Hodjegan, PhD, FCP, FAAPS, FJSSX
Amin is Director of the Centre for Applied Pharmacokinetic Research (CAPKR) at the University of Manchester. In 2007, whilst working at the University of Sheffield, he was the first full Professor appointed with the title of Systems Pharmacology. Professor Rostami has authored/co-authored over 250 highly cited articles (>14,000 citations, H-Factor = 62). In 2017, he was listed by ISI as one of the world’s most highly cited researchers (under ‘Pharmacology & Toxicology’). He was a founding editor of Pharmacometrics and System Pharmacology and serves on the Editorial Boards of several other journals (e.g. BDD, CDM, CPDD, DMPK). Professor Rostami is renowned for his contribution to translational modelling (e.g. PBPK) and has been an invited speaker at over 200 international and national meetings, in addition to leading numerous workshops in the area of IVIVE- PBPK linked models.
Professor Rostami has an active program of training PhD students involving proteomics, PBPK, clinical PKPD and precision dosing. Graduates from his team hold positions in the pharmaceutical industry or academia.
As a co-founder of Simcyp Limited (a University of Sheffield spin-off acquired by Certara), Amin joined Certara in 2012. Certara is the largest company focused on modelling and Simulation in the pharmaceutical industry. As the Senior Vice President of Research & Development and Chief Scientific Officer at Certara, he ensures that the latest scientific advances in the field of biosimulation are incorporated into all of the drug development efforts by various pharmaceutical companies.
Hartmut Derendorf, PhD, FCP
(* August 6, 1953 – † November 23, 2020)
Hartmut Derendorf was Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Pharmaceutics at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy in Gainesville. He received his B.S. (1976) and Ph.D. (1979, summa cum laude) in Pharmacy from the University of Münster, Germany and then joined the University of Florida, first as a Postdoctoral Fellow (1981/82) and later (1983) as a faculty member. He has been teaching Biopharmaceutics, Pharmacokinetics and Clinical Pharmacokinetics. He was awarded numerous teaching awards such as the UF Teaching Improvement Award, HHMI Distinguished Mentorship Award, UF Research Foundation Professorship, CVS Pharmacy Endowed Professorship, International Educator of the Year Award and UF Doctoral Advisor/Mentoring Award (2009 and 2018). He had supervised over 50 Ph.D. students.
Prof. Derendorf had published over 500 scientific articles (h-index Google Scholar 72, Scopus 58) and gave over 1000 presentations at national or international meetings. He had published ten textbooks in English and German. He was Editor or Associate Editor of the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, International Journal of Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents and Die Pharmazie, and served on the Editorial Board of several other Journals. His research interests included the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of corticosteroids, analgesics, antibiotics as well as drug interactions.
Prof. Derendorf had served as the President of ACCP (American College of Clinical Pharmacology) in 2006/08 and the President of ISAP (International Society of Antiinfective Pharmacology) in 2004/06. He won the McKeen-Cattell Award for the best publication in J. Clin. Pharmacology (1994) and the Faculty Award of the University of Utrecht (2005). In 2003, he was awarded the Nathaniel T. Kwit Distinguished Service Award of ACCP and the Research Achievement Award in Clinical Science of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Sciences (AAPS). He was a Fellow of AAPS and ACCP as well as a former review panel member of the NASA Human Research Program. In 2010, he was awarded the Volwiler Award of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) as well as the ACCP Distinguished Investigator Award, the highest research awards of both organizations. In 2013, he was awarded the First Leadership Award of the International Society of Pharmacometrics (ISOP). In 2015 he received the Merit Medal of the Westphalian Chamber of Pharmacy as well as the ACCP Mentorship Award. In 2018 he received the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) Mentor Award. He also served as the 18th University of Florida Distinguished Alumni Professor.
Oliver von Richter, PhD, FCP
Oliver is co-founder of the International Marbach Castle Drug-Drug Interaction Workshop series that was established in 2010. He served as Faculty Member from 2010 – 2018