Tag Archives: Biologics

July 2019—In the early, heady days of biologic therapies, use of these drugs resembled a common military tactic of the Civil War: charge and retreat, charge and retreat, charge and retreat. The approach, though modern at the time, often proved disastrous. Jeffry Katz, MD, recalls the excitement that greeted the arrival of anti-tumor necrosis factor-α agents, starting with infliximab (Remicade) in 1998. “What we used to do is we would give patients a drug, and we would wait for them to get sicker,” says Dr. Katz, medical director, inflammatory bowel diseases, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, and professor of medicine, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.