Biologics and public health: Prospects and challenges

Biotechnology has been used by humankind for thousands of years and it remains a very important part of human medicine. Biotechnology is particularly relevant to the creation of new medicines and vaccines. Biotechnology drugs or biologics are becoming increasingly popular in the life sciences sector. Biologics were estimated to account for US$289 billion pharmaceutical sales in 2014 and are projected to reach US$445 billion in 2019. It is also anticipated that biologics' share of global prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical sales will rise to 26% by 2019. Biological medicines are capable of being developed to cure life-threatening diseases that used to be completely incurable. While biologics have unprecedented therapeutic effects, though, they also raise significant quality and patient safety issues. This article discusses some of the regulatory challenges relating to biologics. It also explores mechanisms that may be adopted to promote the development of new biologics and access to biological drugs especially in low income countries. © 2018 Thomson Head Office.