ABSTRACT
When a patient is given a new medicine the doctor will instruct them how often the medicine should be taken, for example ‘take a tablet three times a day’ and any other conditions ‘to be taken with food’. These are not arbitrary traditions but important instructions, which have a firm scientific basis. These dosing regimens are important in developing new medicines as potential advantages, which a new drug can provide over its competitors. How are the dosage regimens decided and what factors are important? These questions are examined in this chapter on pharmacokinetics.
