Pertti J. Neuvonen

Professor Pertti J. Neuvonen, whose research focuses on drug safety and individual variability in drug response, particularly on drug interactions and their mechanisms, is one of the most cited clinical pharmacologists in the world, with over 20,000 citations. He has been listed by Thomson Reuters for years as an ISI Highly Cited Researcher in Pharmacology. He has authored over 500 original articles and reviews. Of the original papers, 92 have been published in the journal Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics. He has supervised around 50 Doctoral (Ph.D.) thesis projects.

Since 1970, Neuvonen´s research group has found more than 200 previously unrecognized, clinically important drug-drug interactions and several significant food-drug interactions. Furthermore, his group demonstrated, already in the 1980-the 90s, the efficacy of activated charcoal as a gastric decontaminator, compared with induced emesis and gastric lavage. The drug interaction studies in humans were deepened by in vitro studies to explore the mechanism, predictability, and avoidance of the interactions. His group observed that inhibition and induction of CYP3A4/5-enzyme could cause over 10-fold changes in exposure to several drugs midazolam, triazolam, buspirone, felodipine, simvastatin, lovastatin.