‘Biologics’: a clinically meaningless term

Conflicts of interest: none declared. Anton Inbedkov:Shall we say ‘pistols at dawn'? Boris Grushenko:Well, we can say it. I don't know what it means, but we can say it. —From Woody Allen's Love and Death (1975).1 ‘Biologics’ have become ubiquitous in dermatology. We read about them in our journals, hear about them at our meetings, meet their salespeople in our offices, see their promotional materials everywhere, receive countless invitations to participate in continuing medical education (CME) courses and dinner talks focusing on them, and – increasingly – prescribe them for our patients. Similarly, the term ‘biologics’ has become pervasive in the dermatology lexicon. (Full disclosure: I've used the term myself in the past.)2 But do we really know what we mean when we use the term? I suggest that the term ‘biologics’ actually has as much relevance to clinical dermatologists as the phrase ‘pistols at dawn’ had to Grushenko – which is to say, none at all. Moreover, to the extent that the term ‘biologics’ has meaning to clinical dermatologists, it only misleads us.