Drug delivery’s quest for polymers: Where are the frontiers? |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Interventional Radiology, Nanjing First Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China;2. Department of Radiology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States;3. Department of Diagnostic Radiology, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA, United States;1. Dept. of Chemistry, National Institute of Technology, NIT Campus, Calicut 673601, Kerala, India;2. Dept. of Physics, National Institute of Technology, Thiruchirappalli 620015, Tamil Nadu, India |
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Abstract: | Since the legendary 1964 article of Folkman and Long entitled “The use of silicone rubber as a carrier for prolonged drug therapy” the role of polymers in controlled drug delivery has come a long way. Today it is evident that polymers play a crucial if not the prime role in this field. The latest boost owes to the interest in drug delivery for the purpose of tissue engineering in regenerative medicine. The focus of this commentary is on a selection of general and personal observations that are characteristic for the current state of polymer therapeutics and carriers. It briefly highlights selected examples for the long march of synthetic polymer–drug conjugates from bench to bedside, comments on the ambivalence of selected polymers as inert excipients versus biological response modifiers, and on the yet unsolved dilemma of cationic polymers for the delivery of nucleic acid therapeutics. Further subjects are the complex design of multifunctional polymeric carriers including recent concepts towards functional supramolecular polymers, as well as observations on stimuli-sensitive polymers and the currently ongoing trend towards natural and naturally-derived biopolymers. The final topic is the discovery and early development of a novel type of biodegradable polyesters for parenteral use. Altogether, it is not the basic and applied research in polymer therapeutics and carriers, but the translational process that is the key hurdle to proceed towards an authoritative approval of new polymer therapeutics and carriers. |
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Keywords: | Polymer therapeutics Polymer–drug conjugates Biological response modifiers Cationic polymers Multifunctional polymeric carriers Supramolecular polymers Stimuli-sensitive polymers Biopolymers Tissue engineering Translational medicine |
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