Glossary

Amphotericin B is an antifungal drug administered intravenously to treat potentially life-threatening systemic fungal infections and leishmaniasis.

Biobetter is the term used to describe a biopharmaceutical product that is a copy of an existing product that is designed to have superior efficacy and/or safety to the original product.

Biogeneric is the term used to describe a biopharmaceutical product that is copy of an existing product with both the same efficacy and safety (a biosimilar) or superior efficacy and safety (a biobetter).

Biosimilar is the term used to describe a biopharmaceutical product that is a copy of an existing product with the same efficacy and safety, although it is rarely identical. A synonymous term is "follow-on-biologic".

Biotech is the term commonly used in the pharmaceutical industry to describe a company that is developing therapeutic products that are based on proteins or peptides that are produced by recombinant and/or synthetic means.

Biopharmaceutical is used to refer to a therapeutic product that is produced from a biological system such as a bacterial or mammalian cell or in yeast. A synonymous term is "biologic".

Half-life is the time it takes for the blood plasma concentration of a substance, e.g. a therapeutic protein, to halve

Histidine-tag is an amino acid motif in proteins that consists of at least six histidine (His) residues, usually fused to the N- or C-terminus of the protein. It is also known as hexa histidine-tag, 6xHis-tag, and by the trademarked name His-tag (registered by EMD Biosciences).

PEGylation is the addition of one or more PEG molecules to an unrelated molecule.

Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is prepared by polymerization of ethylene oxide and is commercially available over a wide range of molecular weights from 300 g/mol to 10,000,000 g/mol.

Proof-of-concept is potentially demonstrated in a small study conducted to verify, prior to conducting larger definitive studies, that some concept or theory is probably capable of exploitation in a useful manner. A related (somewhat synonymous) term is "proof of principle".