Hi, Seth. Thank you for sharing your career story. Please tell us a little about yourself and your role in pharmacometrics.
Hello! I’m Seth Berry, a principal pharmacometrician, and one of the partners here at Momentum Metrix. I’m very passionate about pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic modeling and simulation, both in analyzing data from clinical trials as well as taking those models to predict individual patient exposures and outcomes. I started my career in the field in 2000 and have expanded my expertise as new pharmacometrics methodologies and technologies have evolved. I’ve also been blessed to have spent most of my career in contract research, where I’ve been able to work on a wide variety of drugs and diseases.
What does your job involve?
In a small company, I wear many hats. My primary role is to empower our clients thru my pharmacometrics expertise. Additionally, I provide leadership to our extraordinary team by bring in cutting-edge technologies that allow us to leverage data, automate insightful workflows, and provide more informed strategic decisions. I also enjoy mentoring pharmacometricians that are entering the field to help them with their career development.
What does “pharmacometrics” mean to you?
Pharmacometrics, to me, is the fusion of clinical pharmacology with modern data analytics, high performance computing technologies, and statistics that tackles the most challenging decisions, from drug development all the way to the patient’s bedside. Using in silico models, based upon in vitro and in vivo data, to evaluate various treatment scenarios provides an intelligent, quantitative approach to optimizing pharmacotherapy.
What do you think is your most important skill as a pharmacometrician?
Communication is key - both active listening as well as being able to discuss complicated pharmacometric concepts and results at a level your audience can understand. A pharmacometrician also has to be very tedious and focused on quality. The predictions we make are only as good as the data and care that went into developing the models or simulations. If a pharmacometrician can do all this, while being succinct and timely, they will bring a lot of value to the table.
The evolution of the tools we use for PK-PD modeling and simulation continues to excite me. Things that took weeks to do early in my career now take only a small fraction of that time. Our analyses are more robust. Our clinical trial designs are more sophisticated. Cannot wait to see how AI transforms and revolutionizes pharmacometrics.
How did you get into pharmacometrics?
While completing my PharmD, the two semesters of Pharmacokinetics, taught by Dr Sri Melethil and Dr Susan Abdel-Rahman, really resonated with me. It morphed into customizing programmable graphical calculators for a couple local hospitals. This was before the days of the smart phone and was the closest thing to a portable computer that could be used on rounds. Applying my PK knowledge with this technology allowed me to help the hospitals optimize aminoglycoside and vancomycin dosing. It was captivating and I was hooked.
What, or who, first inspired you to become a pharmacometrician?
After graduation, I did a post-doctoral fellowship with Quintiles and the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. I was fortunate to have Dr Peter Bonate (who wrote one of the premier books on Pharmacokinetic - Pharmacodynamic Modeling & Simulation) mentoring me early in my career. Pete’s enthusiasm and energy for pharmacometrics was contagious. Learning the fundamentals of population PK analysis from him definitely jump started my pharmacometrics career.
What were the hurdles or challenges you needed to overcome on your route into the profession?
The pharmacometrics learning curve is long and steep. What makes breaking into the field so challenging is pharmacometricians need experience in clinical pharmacology, biostatistics, and computer science or programming - all demanding fields in their own right. Couple this with the fact each field seems to be making significant new advances on a daily basis, adds another level of difficulty. Pharmacometrics is not something people pick up during a week long course. It requires time, patience, and a lot of hard work to really master the craft. If one is ambitious and perseveres, it can lead to a very rewarding career at the forefront of some of the greatest scientific discoveries of our time.
And what are the challenges that you face now, as a working pharmacometrician?
The biggest challenges I now face as a principal phamracometrician center around staying up-to-date on the most recent developments with new classes of molecules coming out, new modeling and simulation methodologies, new software packages, etc. The evolution of the field continues at a rapid pace. It’s a challenge to keep up with it all, but it’s also what makes the field so exciting and rewarding.
What was your first job in pharmacometrics, and how does it compare to your current role?
My first job was as a Pharmacokineticist at Quintiles (now IQVIA) performing traditional non-compartmental analyses (NCAs) and population pharmacokinetic modeling and simulation projects. As a Principal Pharmacometrician and Partner at Momentum Metrix, my current role has more administrative responsibilities, but I’m still performing NCAs and Pop PK modeling and simulation projects. Staying involved in analyses enhances client relationships and helps maintain my skill set. With Momentum Metrix being a smaller company, we are also more agile in our work - both in how we operate and the types of engagements we are involved in.
What was the most important thing you learned in your first year on the job?
To always consider the bigger picture. While we spend a lot of time learning how to develop and search for the best model, as Dr. Nick Holford so eloquently put it during my fellowship at Georgetown University, “You have a finite amount of time to develop a model. All models are wrong, some are useful.” How your work integrates with the client’s objectives, delivers timely value, and provides actionable insights is crucial. It’s not just about the model, but how the model is used to make decisions.
What have been your career highlights so far?
Two shining moments for me. The first was spinning up 1000 cores in the Microsoft Azure cloud back in 2012, to reduce the turnaround time for a set of simulation scenarios, using R with REvolution Analytics, that would have taken over 3 months of run time on our in-house setup down to 8 hours, meeting our clients needs and getting a response back to the regulatory agency in time. It illustrated to me, very early on, of how high performance computing (HPC) would revolutionize and shape the future of the pharmacometrics field. The second was being a part of the first submissions of precision dosing tools to the FDA. From helping design the algorithms, interfaces, to the clinical study designs and analyses to validate the tools, it was the fulfillment of the dreams I had envisioned since my days in pharmacy school.
Have there been any mistakes or regrets along the way?
We all make mistakes - I’ve definitely made my fair share. My main regret is not publishing more, both in writing manuscripts and software packages. This is one of the primary drawbacks to working in the contract research field, the bulk of the data we work with is proprietary and are limited in what we can talk or write about.
How do you think your role will evolve over the rest of your career?
Justus, Grant, and I have a vision to make Momentum Metrix a premier pharmacometrics outsourcing provider. We have all worked for large corporate conglomerates with even larger bureaucracies that frequently stifle innovation and treat clients as just account numbers. We envision a more nimble approach, using technology and AI to automate workflows so we can focus more on the high value, high impact work. We want to develop close relationships with our clients who need a true partner to help them navigate the complex world of drug development - making the right (quantitative-derived) decisions, the first time, on time, every time. My role is to help make this vision a reality.
If you were starting out in pharmacometrics now, what three things would you put at the top of your reading/study list?
I’d recommend:
Introduction to Population Pharmacokinetic / Pharmacodynamic Analysis with Nonlinear Mixed Effects Models by Joel S. Owen and Jill Fiedler-Kelly
Simulation for Designing Clinical Trials: A Pharmacokinetic-Pharmacodynamic Modeling Perspective by Holly Kimko & Stephen B. Duffull,
Population Pharmacokinetics: Guidance for Industry by the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (February 2022).
An Introduction to R: Notes on R: A Programming Environment for Data Analysis and Graphics by W. N. Venables, D. M. Smith and the R Core Team.
What personal or professional advice would you give for anyone wanting to be a pharmacometrician now?
First, success in pharmacometrics hinges on the relationship and trust you build with the business stakeholders. Pharmacometrics is transforming drug development and stakeholders recognize it’s utility in informing the decision making process. However, modeling and simulation does have limitations. One must know where those boundaries are so we don’t over-promise or under-deliver and erode that trust. Second, pharmacometrics also has a wide breadth of opportunities, so find your niche, become an expert in it, and have fun! Finally, never stop learning. The field is constantly evolving and you need to keep up with it.
What new ideas or developments in the field of pharmacometrics are you personally most excited about or intrigued by?
AI paired with Machine (and/or Transfer) Learning has a lot of potential in the pharmacometrics field. Large Language Models are already revolutionizing how we code datasets and models. The technology is further super-charged with open-source tools and cloud-based computing infrastructure to help realize pharmacometrics promise. Then adding real-world data into the mix… the future looks bright!
What do you think will be the main challenges facing pharmacometrics as a field in the next few years?
The biggest challenge lies in scaling the pharmacometrics field. More and more companies are recognizing the benefits of using pharmacometric modeling and simulation to help develop their drug, so they know it is key to their ultimate success. More and more companies are needing the tools and expertise to apply to their drug development programs. Bringing new individuals into the field and getting them up-to-speed with the latest technology and methodologies is paramount to the field’s overall success.
- Copyright and license
- © 2024 Momentum Metrix, LLC. All rights reserved.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) International license. Photo of Seth Berry is not covered by this license.
- How to cite
- Dangler, Angie. 2024. “‘Making a Career in Pharmacometrics: The Challenges and Rewards.’” Momentum Metrix Career Profiles, February 28, 2024. URL