Prof Richard Upton began his research career in 1981 as a technician for Prof Laurie Mather and Prof Bill Runciman at Flinders Medical Centre, who at that time were beginning to use a chronically instrumented sheep preparation to examine the influence of general anaesthesia on drug disposition. It was clear that this experimental preparation was unique both nationally and internationally, and could allow unprecedented insight into the physiological basis of the disposition of drugs used in anaesthesia and intensive care.
Through various higher degrees and post-doctoral work, Dr Upton sought to develop and exploit this experimental preparation at FMC, and from 1989 at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. At the RAH this required supervising and setting up new large animal and analytical laboratories. In 1992 he moved from being a National Health and Medical Research Council Fellow to a Medical Scientist at the RAH. From 1990 to 2003 his laboratory had continuous funding (approximately 2 million dollars) from the National Heart Foundation or NHMRC, and produced over 85 publications. These laboratory facilities were exploited to investigate the basic physiological mechanisms underlying the absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination (ADME) of a number of drugs used in anaesthesia.
Also in this period, Dr Upton developed a number of physiological pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic computer models that added a crucial dimension to the analysis of the data from this laboratory. From 2003 industry funding was used to maintain Dr Upton's laboratory. This culminated in a significant contribution to the preclinical development of a new intravenous sedative, including modelling and scaling of animal data to predict first dose in man.
Clinical work included conducting Phase I and other clinical trials, and particularly the pharmacokinetic analysis of data from clinical trials using NONMEM and other software for mid-sized European drug companies and their collaborators. From November 2008, Dr Upton has worked as a pharmacometric consultant for Projections Research Incorporated, USA, consulting to major pharmaceutical companies.
In March 2010 he joined the University of South Australia as Professor of Pharmacometrics (part-time) and balances academic and consulting work.
Prof Upton has published over 130 papers and has benefited from being a successful basic researcher, from seeing the needs of industry for clinical and preclinical studies and from being a close collaborator of clinicians. This wide perspective has led him to advocate for innovative ways of translating new knowledge into effective drug development and drug treatments for patients. He is of the conviction that a modelling and simulation approach is an important step forward in maximising the efficiency of drug development, and for bridging the knowledge-practice gap in patient care.
In 2001, the President and President-elect of the International Society for Anaesthetic Pharmacology published an overview of their discipline, and described Dr Upton's work as being at the forefront of current thinking. In 2008, a "State of the Art" review on "Contributions of PK/PD Modeling to Intravenous Anesthesia" in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics quoted 4 papers by Dr Upton and his co-workers. He is a former Editor of the British Journal of Pharmacology (Impact factor 3.8). He has been an invited speaker at national meetings, and in the UK, New Zealand, Spain and Denmark.