The journal is published by Walter de Gruyter and the current editor-in-chief is Bernhard Brüne.

The journal was established by Felix Hoppe-Seyler in 1877, under the name Zeitschrift für Physiologische Chemie (English: Journal of Physiological Chemistry), and was edited by him until his death in 1895.

[1] The journal was subsequently renamed Hoppe-Seyler's Zeitschrift für Physiologische Chemie in 1896.

Following Hoppe-Seyler, the journal was edited by his student and collaborator, the German biochemist and Nobel laureate Albrecht Kossel, until his death in 1927.

[1] In 1985 the journal was renamed as Biological Chemistry Hoppe-Seyler, before obtaining its current title in 1996.