Nanomaterials: Applications in Drug Delivery

Abstract

Soon after the discovery of liposomes by Bangham in 1966 (Bangham et al. 1969, nanomaterials were introduced in medicine and the development of the first polymer nanoparticles for oral administration was achieved by Speiser in the late 1960s (Khanna and Speiser 1969). In the early 1970s, these objects were considered as the possible ''magic bullet'' that was a concept proposed 60 years before by the Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine Paul Ehrlich. The aim of the magic bullet is to improve treatments by targeting drugs to diseased tissues cells and subcellular compartments (Kreuter 2007). The introduction of nanomaterials in drug formulation strategies became sources of major innovations in drug delivery over the last 40 years (Couvreur and Vauthier 2006;Kreuter 2007;Bosch and Rosich 2008). IntroductionSoon after the discovery of liposomes by Bangham in 1966 [12], nanomaterials were introduced in medicine and the development of the first polymer nanoparticles for oral administration was achieved by Speiser in the late 1960s [62]. In the early 1970s, these objects were considered as the possible ''magic bullet'' that was a concept proposed 60 years before by the Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine Paul Ehrlich. The aim of the magic bullet is to improve treatments by targeting drugs to diseased tissues cells and subcellular compartments [64]. The introduction of nanomaterials in drug formulation strategies became sources of major innovations in drug delivery over the [26] were on the basis of key achievements in the early ages of the nanomedicine leading to major progresses and the marketing of a new generation of drug formulations [2,53,78,83,93,101,116,119]. At present, a myriad of nanomaterials are considered as suitable nanomedicines [1,36,93]. They have emerged from polymer chemistry and from a better understanding of mechanisms governing molecules self-assembling properties which allowed the development of many types of nano-objects according to a bottom-up approach. Most advanced developments are intended to design multifunctional nanomaterials helping the diagnostic and at the same time, if necessary, the delivery of the right amount of drug on demand and at the right place [36,118].It is noteworthy that any developments that concern medicines applied to human and animals are submitted to a strong regulation. Risks are taken into consideration at the root of developments and many projects are aborted in their earlier age because of safety problems. During development of pharmaceutics, the benefice to risk balance needs to be proved and must satisfy stringent requirements imposed by rules of agencies in charge of authorizations for marketing of the new drug products. Obviously, developments of new medicines using nanomaterials are concerned by these rules. However, in the absence of sufficient knowledge on nanomaterials regarding their safety and protocols of evaluation, drugs formulated in nanotechnologies are currently still developed on the basis of regulations in use for conventional drugs. Regulato...