Dr. Hartmut Derendorf, PhD, a world‐renowned expert in pharmacokinetics and pharmacometrics (1953–2020)

Our professional and academic community lost a great pioneer in the field of pharmacokinetics and pharmacometrics when Dr. Hartmut Derendorf, distinguished professor at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy passed away unexpectedly on November 23, 2020, at the age of 67. A native of Germany, Dr. Derendorf received his BS and PhD in pharmacy from the University of Münster and then joined University of Florida (UF) as a postdoctoral fellow in 1981. He joined the College of Pharmacy as a faculty member in 1983 and spent over 3 decades serving the college, including more than 25 years as chair of the Department of Pharmaceutics. During his career, Hartmut mentored over 70 graduate students and 40 postdoctoral fellows, published over 500 publications, and earned multiple national and international awards. He has published textbooks in English and German and was an Editor or Associate Editor of the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, International Journal of Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, and Die Pharmazie; he served on the Editorial Board of CPT: Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology and several other journals. Upon his retirement in 2018, Dr. Derendorf was appointed as distinguished professor emeritus in the UF College of Pharmacy. His research interests included the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of corticosteroids, analgesics, and antibiotics as well as drug interactions. His work on analgesics looked to relate tissue concentrations with pharmacodynamics. As practitioner and advocate of pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic modeling, he researched novel ways of addressing resistance and dosing challenges with antibiotics. He engaged in addressing the pitfalls arising when summarizing pharmacodynamics into a single value, highlighted in his WCoP and ASCPT lectures with the thought-provoking title “Why MIC is poison for the mind.” His research interest extended to understanding the drug interaction potential of natural compounds and the effect of gravity on the pharmacokinetics of drugs, as well as to characterizing the impact of tissue distribution on drug effects through microdialysis. Dr. Derendorf was a much-appreciated mentor and teacher. An exemplar mentor, he was a two-time winner of UF’s doctoral dissertation advisor mentoring award. He received the ISoP Leadership award in 2013 and the ASCPT mentoring award in 2018, and he stated “During my career, I have been blessed with outstanding students and postdocs, and seeing them grow and be successful is the greatest achievement one can hope for in academia.” We also remember Dr. Derendorf as an active participant at scientific meetings around the world, always encouraging and caring for young investigators. When he was interviewed as a career profile for ASCPT in 2018, he highlighted some advice for the next generation of researchers: “attend as many meetings in your field as you can” and “be active and reach out, don’t wait for the phone to ring.” Dr. Derendorf also recognized the important role of modeling and simulations in areas outside clinical pharmacology and pharmacometrics. In 2009, he was a founding member of the Marbach Drug-Drug Interaction Workshop, which has now established itself over 10 years and is one of the most popular workshops of the field. He was also the founding chair of Modeling and Simulation Focused Group at the International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics (ISSX), a society that historically focuses on drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics. He was indeed a great and generous scientist with extraordinary humility. The Editors of Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology are saddened by this loss. He leaves a rich legacy as a mentor, teacher, researcher, and ambassador in our profession. At the time of authoring, V.S. was an employee of Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA, and owns stock options in Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA. V.S. also reports stock and patents from Eli Lilly and Co.

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