Chromatography Today talks to Howard Hill

Up until now, interviewees featuring in Chromatography Today have been drawn from individuals who have been recipients of Martin or Jubilee Awards of The Chromatographic Society. Illustrious though this group very much is, they do not have exclusive ownership of all comment that is worth making in the field of analysis and separation science. Accordingly, we are more than happy to turn to Howard Hill (of contract researchers HLS) who not only has his finger on the pulse regarding biopharmaceuticals and their analysis but is also the lead of the team charged with nurturing the legacy of the late Eric Reid that is the Reid International Bioanalytical Forum. Howard’s main responsibility is orchestrating the high quality scientific programmes that characterize the Reid meetings; so he knows what he is talking about. Here Howard talks to Chromatography Today not only about biopharmaceuticals but also about what is in store for us in this year's Reid meeting in early July.

(Chromatography Today)
Several years ago you noted the increasing proportion of biopharmaceuticals in pharmaceutical company pipelines. What were the drivers and just how far have things gone now?

(Howard Hill)
In some cases biologics are able to target receptors that are not amenable to small chemical entities; there was and probably still is a school of thought that better designed small molecule mimetics could be identified to target any ligand. However the success of some of the early biologics, mostly recombinant forms of endogenous proteins and other important classes such as monoclonal antibodies have proven to be extremely successful in treating life threatening conditions. These “large” molecules now represent up to 50% of many companies’ development portfolios. Indeed there is common agreement amongst most industry observers that by 2014 the top six block busters will be biologics.