Thank you for your interest in Pmetrics, created by the Laboratory of Applied Pharmacokinetics and Bioinformatics. Pmetrics is a library package for R to perform non-parametric and parametric pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic population and individual modeling and simulation. It is primarily designed for pharmacometric researchers.
Pmetrics is based on over 40 years of research by our laboratory and is the most mature non-parametric method available. Nevertheless, Pmetrics is dynamically evolving. Best of all, it is SHAREWARE with only a suggested donation.
Installation
R (required)
You can download and install R from the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN).
Rust (required)
The simulation engine for Pmetrics is written in Rust, which is required to fit models.
Follow the instructions on the Rust website to install Rust on your system.
Pmetrics
Pmetrics is distributed on r-universe, and built for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. To install, you must specify r-universe as the repository using
install.packages("Pmetrics", repos = "https://lapkb.r-universe.dev")For updating the package and for easier future installations, you can run the following command to add the r-universe repository to your R.profile
write('options(repos = c(CRAN = "https://cloud.r-project.org", LAPKB = "https://lapkb.r-universe.dev"))', "~/.Rprofile", append = TRUE)With this setup, you can install or update Pmetrics using the standard command install.packages("Pmetrics") without specifying the repository each time.
IDE (optional)
In addition, we strongly recommend a third-party integrated development environment (IDE) to use R and Pmetrics rather than the rudimentary IDE that comes with R. We use all the IDEs below when developing and working with Pmetrics.
RStudio is the oldest and most stable IDE, developed by Posit. Most users who only program in R use Rstudio. It has a simple interface with many R-specific buttons and menus. It is relatively easy to learn and use, but does not support other programming languages.
Positron is a newer alternative also from Posit. Posit are now mostly developing Positron rather than Rstudio. Positron primarily supports users who work in R and Python. However, it is built upon VS Code, which gives Positron access to thousands of extensions, including multiple AI tools to assist with coding and data analysis, and Positron can support additional programming languages. It is far more powerful than Rstudio, but has a steeper learning curve and currently fewer R-specific buttons and menus. VS Code users will find Positron familiar.
VS Code itself can be used for R, but it is best suited for experienced coders who also use other programming languages.
Related projects
The LAPKB has developed two packages in Rust to power Pmetrics.
pharmsol is a Rust library for defining and solving pharmacokinetic models.
PMcore depends on pharmsol to fit models to data, and implements the different algorithms which are made available in Pmetrics.
Pmetrics and the code that powers it is provided as open-source code.
Contributing
We welcome contributions in the form of feature requests, raising issues, or writing code.
Documentation
We encourage you to visit our website to learn about Pmetrics.