From micro to nano: evolution and impact of drug delivery in treating disease
Author(s)
Hrkach, Jeff; Langer, Robert S
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Over the past 50 years, drug delivery breakthroughs have enabled the approval of several important medicines. Often, this path starts with innovation from academic collaborations amongst biologists, chemists, and engineers, followed by the formation of a start-up company driving clinical translation and approval. An early wave featured injectable (i.e., intramuscular, subcutaneous) biodegradable polymeric microspheres to control drug release profiles for peptides and small molecules (e.g., Lupron Depot®, Risperdal Consta®). With these early successes for microspheres, research shifted to exploring systemic delivery by intravenous injection, which required smaller particle sizes and modified surface properties (e.g., PEGylation) to enable long circulation times. These new innovations resulted in the nanoparticle medicines Doxil® and Abraxane®, designed to improve the therapeutic index of cytotoxic cancer agents by decreasing systemic exposure and delivering more drug to tumors. Very recently, the first siRNA lipid nanoparticle medicine, Patisiran (Onpattro®), was approved for treating hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis. In this inspirational note, we will highlight the technological evolution of drug delivery from micro- to nano-, citing some of the approved medicines demonstrating the significant impact of the drug delivery field in treating many diseases.
Date issued
2020-05Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering; Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MITJournal
Drug Delivery and Translational Research
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Hrkach, Jeff and Robert Langer. "From micro to nano: evolution and impact of drug delivery in treating disease." Drug Delivery and Translational Research 10, 3 (May 2020): 567–570 © 2020 Controlled Release Society
Version: Author's final manuscript
ISSN
2190-393X
2190-3948