10 years of Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy

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