To the members of IABS

Dear colleagues,

As your newly elected President, I would like to thank you for the trust you have put in me to lead IABS in a very challenging and competitive environment.

When I started my professional career 30 years ago in a regulatory agency I became immediately aware of the important role of IABS. At that time, the use of diploid cell lines as substrate for viral vaccine production was under intense debate. I participated in those discussions as well as those on whether or not continuous cell lines should be used as substrates for biologicals such as monoclonal antibodies. At that time, I admired the work of IABS in the process of resolving those issues. Now I am proud to be its President, and wish to continue the successful work of my predecessors and to strengthen the international role of IABS.

The General Assembly meeting on December 1, 2010, in Langen (Germany) took a number of important decisions. It was not simply a change in the name of IABS to replace "Association" by "Alliance", but it was a profound change within the organization. The goal is to attract more sponsors, not only to create a sound financial basis for the Alliance's activities, but also to sense early and quickly upcoming issues with biologicals. By doing so, we will then be in a position to use our large network of scientists in academic institutions, in regulatory agencies and in companies and to develop solutions based on a consensus among all involved parties.

There might also be a need to widen the scope of our activities not only to new types of biologicals like engineered tissues and stem cells, but also to new geographic regions such as Latin America, Asia and Africa. To do so we have to expand our network and to increase the efforts of our Scientific Conference Committees.

Our common goal will be to further the quality of all biologicals and to contribute to their safe use worldwide for the benefit of all citizens.

I ask all of you for your continuing support of IABS and trust that together we can re-dedicate our efforts to make IABS an even more effective organization than it has been in the past.

Johannes Löwer President