Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy is now in its 10th volume! In the foreword to the first volume, J. Desmond Fitzgerald stated that “the broader field of biologic therapy has only come of age in the last 20 years but now is poised to make a major impact on therapeutics.” We now look back over the last 10 years’ manuscripts in EOBT and are struck by how complex this transition into therapeutic application has been and how EOBT has provided the expert commentary that distills, explains, and prioritizes the issues involved, highlighting the most promising technologies and, frequently, identifying the technologies that may seem to be “outside the box’ but which could also represent new strategies for managing difficult-to-treat medical conditions. Illustrating the complexity in development and approval of biologics are the many reports on cancer vaccines. These articles point out how the success of clinical trials of immunotherapy for cancer will require further understanding of the ideal patient groups, immune correlates, and most appropriate clinical endpoints. The reporting on the development of dendritic cell vaccines for prostate cancer including Provenge and DCVax illustrates excellent commentary on these complex issues. Now Provenge stands at the threshold of an approval decision by FDA which would make it the first true anti-cancer vaccine to be approved. Therapeutic antibodies have continued to expand in number and range of targets. This is most apparent in the most recent issue of EOBT with reviews of antibodies against targets as diverse as folate receptor α, CD80, and RANK-ligand. Another area that has continued to gain momentum is that of stem cell therapy and it is expected that the next ten years will see this used more routinely as a therapeutic option for diverse medical conditions. Finally, glimpses of the future are suggested by manuscripts describing strategies for creating vascular structures to support development of new organs. While the ability to generate new tissue to replace damaged organs and structures routinely may be far in the future, we see the first glimpses of this possibility now 10 years into EOBTs coverage of biologic therapy.
Dr Michael Morse
Editor-in-Chief
Sunday 24 January 2010
Saturday 2 January 2010
Celebrating the 20 years of Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents
This month celebrates the 20th anniversary of Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents. Behind this slightly esoteric title, EOTP has for two decades offered a bird’s eye view of the latest advances in the discovery of therapeutically promising molecules. During this period the scientific and regulatory landscapes in drug R&D inevitably evolved, the number of peer-reviewed publications worldwide increased steadily and the Expert Opinion journals changed hands. Yet, I think it is fair to say that EOTP’s distinct approach and relevance have remained unaltered.
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents’ launch aimed at filling a gap in the life science literature by explicitly including patents within the scope of its review articles. Key to a legal system designed to promote innovation, patents provide exclusive rights to the inventor in return for the full disclosure of the invention to the public. In the specific context of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, this makes patents a particularly valuable source of information for medicinal chemists and other researchers involved in drug discovery. In effect, to protect their promising compounds, companies reveal them at an early preclinical stage and for the first time in patents. Not only do patents divulge the novel compounds, but they also show which are deemed to show clinical potential and offer insights into the competitors’ research programmes.
Patents are not alien to researchers in the industry. However, despite being largely freely available and easily searchable, patents present the information in a somewhat cryptic way. They don’t follow the rules of scientific writing and extracting the relevant knowledge can be time consuming. Patents are long documents worded in legal jargon by specialist attorneys. They often cover dozens of compounds, only a few of which are of genuine interest. These compounds need to be reconstructed from generic structures and of course, they need to be put into context with other related patents as well as the scientific literature.
EOTP’s review articles provide a dramatic shortcut to the essential information by summing up the important scientific content of dozens of patents, putting it into a wider perspective and, of course, expressing the authors’ own critical opinion. They answer fundamental questions such as “what are the structural types of inhibitors? “ and “who are the major players in the field?,” but also go beyond and suggest which compounds are likely to progress to the clinic. In that respect, Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents’ reviews offer exceptional added value.
I know from many first-time authors that preparing a manuscript for the journal is a surprisingly taxing undertaking. I can but acknowledge this and I would like to thank our authors for their hard work. The constant increase in EOTP’s usage testifies that the drug discovery community clearly values such efforts. Moreover, the readership is very likely to continue to grow as EOTP has eventually been accepted for indexing on Medline last year – an unfortunately tardy development.
Last year, Expert Opinion’s editorial team gathered feedback from the advisory boards and our readers. This 20th volume of EOTP should reap the first benefits of this consultation. First, the abstract’s structure has been redesigned to better reflect the content of the article. Second, an ‘article highlights’ box has been added to guide the reader through the main points of the paper. Third, EOTP will start publishing one to two themed issues in each volume. The first one, guest-edited by Dr Herbert Kirst from our Editorial Board, will cover antibacterials and will be due later this year.
I expect in 2010 the acceleration of another more gradual addition to the journal. The biotechnologies are now fully integrated to the pharmaceutical area and bear novel promises of therapeutic advances. Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents will logically increase its coverage of biologicals to echo this trend.
I hope this agenda meets our readers’ expectations and that EOTP will remain, above all, a useful resource to professionals in the field.
Joris Roulleau
Senior Editor
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents’ launch aimed at filling a gap in the life science literature by explicitly including patents within the scope of its review articles. Key to a legal system designed to promote innovation, patents provide exclusive rights to the inventor in return for the full disclosure of the invention to the public. In the specific context of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, this makes patents a particularly valuable source of information for medicinal chemists and other researchers involved in drug discovery. In effect, to protect their promising compounds, companies reveal them at an early preclinical stage and for the first time in patents. Not only do patents divulge the novel compounds, but they also show which are deemed to show clinical potential and offer insights into the competitors’ research programmes.
Patents are not alien to researchers in the industry. However, despite being largely freely available and easily searchable, patents present the information in a somewhat cryptic way. They don’t follow the rules of scientific writing and extracting the relevant knowledge can be time consuming. Patents are long documents worded in legal jargon by specialist attorneys. They often cover dozens of compounds, only a few of which are of genuine interest. These compounds need to be reconstructed from generic structures and of course, they need to be put into context with other related patents as well as the scientific literature.
EOTP’s review articles provide a dramatic shortcut to the essential information by summing up the important scientific content of dozens of patents, putting it into a wider perspective and, of course, expressing the authors’ own critical opinion. They answer fundamental questions such as “what are the structural types of inhibitors? “ and “who are the major players in the field?,” but also go beyond and suggest which compounds are likely to progress to the clinic. In that respect, Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents’ reviews offer exceptional added value.
I know from many first-time authors that preparing a manuscript for the journal is a surprisingly taxing undertaking. I can but acknowledge this and I would like to thank our authors for their hard work. The constant increase in EOTP’s usage testifies that the drug discovery community clearly values such efforts. Moreover, the readership is very likely to continue to grow as EOTP has eventually been accepted for indexing on Medline last year – an unfortunately tardy development.
Last year, Expert Opinion’s editorial team gathered feedback from the advisory boards and our readers. This 20th volume of EOTP should reap the first benefits of this consultation. First, the abstract’s structure has been redesigned to better reflect the content of the article. Second, an ‘article highlights’ box has been added to guide the reader through the main points of the paper. Third, EOTP will start publishing one to two themed issues in each volume. The first one, guest-edited by Dr Herbert Kirst from our Editorial Board, will cover antibacterials and will be due later this year.
I expect in 2010 the acceleration of another more gradual addition to the journal. The biotechnologies are now fully integrated to the pharmaceutical area and bear novel promises of therapeutic advances. Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents will logically increase its coverage of biologicals to echo this trend.
I hope this agenda meets our readers’ expectations and that EOTP will remain, above all, a useful resource to professionals in the field.
Joris Roulleau
Senior Editor
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