DEFINITION
Pharmacodynamics (PD) is the branch of pharmacology concerned with what a compound does to the organism — its biochemical, cellular and physiological effects and the molecular mechanisms responsible for them. It is conventionally paired with pharmacokinetics (PK), which describes what the organism does to the compound.
Pharmacodynamic analysis quantifies the relationship between drug concentration at the site of action and the resulting response. The core parameters are the concentration-response curve, its EC50 (potency), its maximum response (efficacy) and its slope (typically fitted with a Hill coefficient).
WHY IT MATTERS
Pharmacodynamics is the analytical framework used across every mechanism-of-action page on this site.
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