Development of an interspecies whole-body physiologically based pharmacokinetic (WBPBPK) model for colistin methanesulfonate (CMS) and colistin in five animal species and evaluation of its predictive ability in human

Background and purpose Colistin is a last-line antibiotic administered as the prodrug colistin methanesulfonate (CMS) for the treatment of multidrug resistant Gram-negative bacterial infections. Whole-body physiologically based pharmacokinetic (WBPBPK) models are valuable tools to understand and characterize drug disposition, predict tissue distribution and interpret exposure-response relationship. The aim of this work was to develop a WBPBPK model for colistin and CMS in five animal species and evaluate the utility of the model for predicting colistin and CMS disposition in human. Methods A nonlinear mixed-effects WBPBPK model previously developed in rats was extended to describe CMS and colistin plasma data of animals from 5 different species (40 mice, 6 rats, 3 rabbits, 3 baboons and 2 pigs) that had received single doses of CMS. CMS renal clearance and hydrolysis to colistin were allometrically scaled based on glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and tissue volumes, respectively. For the non-renal colistin clearance, three scaling models were evaluated: volume based allometric scaling, volume and maximum lifespan potential (MLP) based allometric scaling, and estimation of specie-specific parameters. Tissue concentrations were predicted for all species. The WBPBPK model was then used to predict human plasma concentrations, which were compared to observed human plasma PK data extracted from literature. Results The description of the plasma PK of CMS and colistin in mice, rats, rabbits, baboons and pigs was satisfactory. The volume and MLP based allometric scaling of the non-renal clearance of colistin was best at characterizing colistin concentration-time course, even if a misprediction remained in pigs. In human however, allometric scaling without MLP was closest to the observed data, with satisfactory prediction of the CMS plasma profiles and a slight overprediction of colistin plasma PK profiles. Conclusions Interspecies WBPBPK models were developed to describe the