Biopharmaceutic planning in pediatric drug development.

Pediatric drug development is a required consideration for all drug development programs. Age-appropriate formulations such as suspensions, chewable tablets, oral disintegrating tablets, etc., are typically developed and used in the pediatric clinical studies. However, it is not uncommon to use enabling formulations in the pivotal pediatric clinical study followed by bridging bioavailability and/or bioequivalence studies. Development of age-appropriate formulations is an essential part of pediatric drug development and adds additional biopharmaceutical considerations to an already complex problem. Careful planning of biopharmaceutic data collection during the adult and pediatric development program can contribute significantly to the biopharmaceutic risk assessment and planning of appropriate clinical studies leading to successful development of pediatric formulations.