ADME is best described as the study of pharmacokinetics.

• A. Kinetics
• B. Dynamics
• C. Toxicology
• D. Pharmacogenomics

Answer: (A)

ADME describes how a drug moves and changes inside the body over time, which is the essence of pharmacokinetics. The four processes—absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion—together determine the concentration of the drug in plasma and tissues as time passes. This time-course understanding is what pharmacokinetics aims to predict and quantify, guiding dosing and predictability of drug exposure.

Pharmacodynamics, on the other hand, is about what the drug does to the body—the relationship between drug concentration and effect. Toxicology focuses on adverse effects and safety, while pharmacogenomics studies how genetic differences influence drug response. The term kinetics by itself refers to rates of processes, but the established field that encompasses the whole handling of a drug by the body is pharmacokinetics.