Mager receives lifetime award from International Society of Pharmacometrics

Donald E. Mager, professor and chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, has received the 2024 Lewis B. Sheiner Lecturer Award from the International Society of Pharmacometrics (ISoP).

The award was established in 2008 to acknowledge exceptional and outstanding lifetime career achievements and leadership in the field of pharmacometrics. It is the society’s highest recognition.

A research leader in systems pharmacology and pharmacodynamics, Mager will be recognized Nov. 10 during the 2024 American Conference on Pharmacometrics being held in Phoenix. As the Sheiner awardee, Mager also will deliver a lecture on pharmacometrics. 

“We are immensely proud of Don for receiving this prestigious award,” says Gary Pollack, dean of the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. “His career-long contributions in pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and systems pharmacology have supported the development of important therapeutic agents and advanced the discipline of pharmacometrics more broadly. Don’s innovative scholarship and dedication to educating the pharmaceutical science leaders of the future will have a lasting impact on drug discovery and development for years to come.” 

Mager, BS, ’91, PharmD ‘00 and PhD, ’02, joined the UB faculty in 2004. He was granted tenure in 2010 and was promoted to full professor in 2016. Soon thereafter, he was named vice chair and chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2017 and 2022, respectively.

He also served as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute on Aging from 2002-04 and as a visiting professor at the Université Paris Descartes from 2007-13 and again in 2016, 2019 and 2020.

Throughout his academic career, Mager has made significant contributions to theoretical concepts and mathematical models for target-mediated drug disposition, signal transduction and combinatorial therapeutics, with a focus on anticancer and immunomodulatory agents.

In 2021, he was appointed as a fellow to the International Pharmaceutic Federation (FIP) and was recognized at the FIP Virtual 2020 Congress opening ceremony in September 2021.

During his tenure at UB, Mager has served as interim director of undergraduate studies for the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He is also a graduate faculty member in experimental therapeutics at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and serves as president and CEO of Enhanced Pharmacodynamics LLC.

Mager also has served on the board of directors/regents of ISoP and the American College of Clinical Pharmacology (ACCP) and has held significant leadership roles at the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) and the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT).

He has served on the Pharmaceutical Sciences and Clinical Pharmacology Advisory Committee to the Food and Drug Administration, is an associate editor of Pharmaceutical Research and is on the editorial advisory boards of several journals. He has contributed articles to more than 180 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.

He is a former president of ISoP and ACCP, and a fellow of ISoP, ACCP, AAPS and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Mager’s impressive catalogue of awards include the AAPS New Investigator Award, an ISoP Innovation Award, the ASCPT Malle Jurima–Romet Mid-Career Leadership Award, along with a SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activity, all awarded in 2017. He also received the Allen J. Sedman Lecture Award from the University of Michigan Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2018.