Prior-Fitted Functional Flow: In-Context Generative Models for Pharmacokinetics

arXiv stat.ML / 4/21/2026

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Key Points

  • The paper introduces “Prior-Fitted Functional Flows,” a generative foundation model aimed at pharmacokinetics (PK) tasks like population synthesis and individual forecasting.
  • The method learns functional vector fields that are conditioned on sparse and irregular data across an entire study population, enabling zero-shot use without manual parameter tuning.
  • It supports creating coherent “virtual cohorts” and forecasting partially observed patient trajectories while providing calibrated uncertainty.
  • The authors build a new open-access literature corpus to inform the model’s priors and report state-of-the-art predictive accuracy on large real-world datasets.

Abstract

We introduce Prior-Fitted Functional Flows, a generative foundation model for pharmacokinetics that enables zero-shot population synthesis and individual forecasting without manual parameter tuning. We learn functional vector fields, explicitly conditioned on the sparse, irregular data of an entire study population. This enables the generation of coherent virtual cohorts as well as forecasting of partially observed patient trajectories with calibrated uncertainty. We construct a new open-access literature corpus to inform our priors, and demonstrate state-of-the-art predictive accuracy on extensive real-world datasets.