The word "biologics" is correct and usable in written English.
It is used to refer to products or substances derived from biological sources that are used to treat illnesses and conditions, such as therapeutic proteins or antibodies. For example, "Biologics are often used to treat autoimmune diseases like Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis."
Drugs that are "biologics", such as vaccines, monoclonal antibodies and gene therapy, are derived from biological processes and are inherently more complicated than the chemicals that have traditionally been the mainstay of the pharmacological arsenal.Gene therapy could be the most complex biologic of all, reckons Dr High.
Such biologics include erythropoietin (which promotes the growth of red blood cells), human growth factor and insulin.
In the coming year a fresh wave of biologics is expected to be approved for use by general practitioners (see table).In this section Going large Your phone says: "Cheer up!" Making it in the desert kingdom Export or die Getting hooked ReprintsSeveral of these will treat the millions of people who find that statins, the conventional treatment for high cholesterol, do not work well enough.
In America more than 900 biologics are in development, for more than 100 diseases.Over the next five years, a further generation of biologic drugs will start to deliver cures by using viruses to deliver "gene therapy"—the replacement of a faulty gene in a patient's body cells with the correct version.
Paying this sort of money is hard enough for rich countries' health systems; for poorer countries, it is out of the question.As biologics increase their market share, their cost and efficacy will come under greater scrutiny.
Biologics for rheumatoid arthritis, which patients have to keep taking for the long term, cost more than $12,000 per patient a year.
Second, since they will not be identical copies, doctors and patients may be slow to accept them as substitutes.All this will be good news for those drugmakers who create successful biologics, for it will allow them to continue selling at higher prices for longer.
But steady progress is being made in creating "biologics", drugs that consist of giant molecules, hundreds of times the size of a conventional drug molecule, which are manufactured inside animal cells or micro-organisms such as bacteria.
Humira has become the world's leading prescription drug, with sales of $11 billion in 2013, according to EvaluatePharma, a research outfit.Damien Conover of Morningstar, an investment-research firm, reckons that biologics provided 22% of the big pharma companies' sales in 2013, and he thinks this will rise to 32% by 2023.
If so, biologics that can be popped as pills may be possible one day.Biologics, like all other drugs, are not immune to setbacks.
Shares in Roche, a Swiss drugs giant, fell sharply on December 19th when it disclosed disappointing results from tests on cancer patients of a combination of two of its biologics, Kadcyla and Perjeta.
