Certara recognized for COVID vaccine simulation model

Pharmaceutical biosimulation software company Certara won an R&D 100 Award from R&D World magazine for its its Simcyp COVID-19 Vaccine Model.

The nearly 50-year-old worldwide competition lists the top 100 “R&D pioneers and their revolutionary ideas in science and technology” in the past year recognized the model, incorporated in Certara’s Vaccine Simulator, a platform used by major pharmaceutical companies that allows researchers to study how a vaccine is handled by the human body in computer-generated, virtual populations.

“Our COVID-19 Vaccine Model is being used to determine optimal vaccine doses and timing between doses, investigate differences in immune response with age and ethnicity, evaluate the duration of immune response after vaccination, and identify the best booster sequencing for COVID-19 vaccines. We are also now applying our Vaccine Simulator to develop vaccines for oncology and respiratory syncytial virus,” said Dr. Piet van der Graaf, senior vice president of quantitative systems pharmacology at Princeton-based Certara in a statement.

Dr. Piet van der Graaf

The model has demonstrated that it can accurately predict the outcomes of real-life clinical trials using COVID-19 vaccines, according to the company. It predicted that the optimal timing between the first two COVID-19 vaccine doses is eight weeks, which was then validated by a study conducted at Oxford University.

The model was calibrated using COVID-19 vaccine structures and validated by replicating the published clinical data.

The company said results from the model have been presented by companies developing COVID-19 vaccines at the American College of Clinical Pharmacy and American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists as well as to global regulatory agencies, including the Food & Drug Administration.