Celebrating Five Years of BioSupply Reporting

IT’S HARD TO believe it’s been five years since the first issue of BioSupply Trends Quarterly went to press. This publication was originally envisioned as an expanded edition of our BioSupply Trends bi-weekly e-newsletter, filled with up-to-date news, trends and perspectives impacting the biopharmaceuticals marketplace. Since its debut, BioSupply Trends Quarterly has won numerous awards for its in-depth content and outstanding cover designs, in addition to being named among the top-10 pharmaceutical magazines for 2010 by Cision U.S. Inc, a leading media relations firm.

This fifth anniversary issue puts a spotlight once again on the ever-evolving landscape of the vaccine industry. Since the year 2000, the vaccines market has nearly tripled, exceeding $17 billion globally. Long considered the most significant innovation of the 20th century, vaccines continue to play a significant role when it comes to addressing issues that include increased life expectancy, infectious disease outbreaks and childhood mortality in developing countries.

Ever since actress Jenny McCarthy became a poster mom for the anti-vaccine movement in 2008, a rising tide of highly vocal vaccine opponents has created a wave of public cynicism and distrust regarding vaccine efficacy and safety. Even though the now infamous Lancet study linking vaccines to autism has been publicly discredited, misinformation continues to abound. Our article “The Anti-Vaccine Movement: Where Are We Now?” explores this still volatile issue amid recent reports from the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention that the U.S. now has the most measles cases in 20 years, as well as the most cases since homegrown outbreaks were eliminated in 2000. As of May, the case count was 288 and growing. As public health officials grapple with questions about containing outbreaks of highly infectious diseases like measles, the timely article “Containing an Outbreak: An Epidemiologist at Work” delves into the complex steps that must be taken from the moment an infectious disease is suspected, to the use of new mobile apps and GPS technologies that can help retrace the trail of infected patients and assist in disease intervention.

While the anti-vaccine movement has largely focused on childhood immunizations, the recommendations for adult vaccines have received far less attention from patients, physicians and the media. There are 17 vaccine-preventable diseases targeted by immunization recommendations across a person’s lifespan, yet many of the new immunizations and booster vaccines for adults are often overlooked or ignored. With low adult vaccination rates resulting in thousands of deaths annually, our article “An Update on Adult Immunizations” looks at the need to increase education and awareness about this surprisingly high-risk group.

HIV/AIDS is another infectious disease that has confounded the medical establishment since it was first diagnosed in the early 1980s, fanning fears of a new and deadly plague. A lot has changed since a diagnosis of HIV was a guaranteed death sentence. And, as our article “The Changing Face of HIV” examines, the evolution of treatment and ongoing research seems to be moving us closer to a potential HIV vaccine and perhaps even a cure.

As a publisher, we look back with great pride on these past five years, and we will continue to make it our mission to provide you with timely, newsworthy and critical information impacting the biopharmaceuticals marketplace. As always, we hope you enjoy this issue of BioSupply Trends Quarterly, and we welcome your comments.

Helping Healthcare Care,

Patrick M. Schmidt

Publisher