by
Loren Bonner, DOTmed News Online Editor | April 24, 2012
From the April 2012 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Despite these breakthroughs, nanomedicine has a long way to go before its benefits can be fully realized. In an email to DOTmed Business News, a spokesperson for the National Nanotechnology Initiative’s Coordination Office said that funding for clinical trials and commercial success stories are among some of the current challenges.
“The field sentiment is that there are many very successful preclinical success stories, and some very interesting Phase I and Phase II studies being conducted. However, venture capital firms and pharmaceutical companies are waiting for an exemplary nanoparticle clinical success where a particle has been engineered with either a novel API and/or disease-specific targeting has been demonstrated before they make investments in this area,” the source said.
Although clinical trials have begun for many of these nanomedicine products, it’s likely to take years—and more testing—for a success to surface.
In order for nanomedicine to deliver on its promise to improve health care in the coming decades, necessary steps are needed to translate these ideas into clinical trials. Duncan includes responsible scientific experimentation in her recent assessment of nanomedicines.
“One of the main challenges, I believe, is the need for basic researchers to understand the difference between advances in nanoscience — which are many and brilliant — and the need for nanotechnologies that can be produced
on a commercial scale using a ‘quality-by-design’ approach’ to give safe and effective products that can be used in society to improve the diagnosis and treatment of diseases,” she says.
She’s also weary of academic research that can overhype a new cancer treatment, for example, and where the general public is often left with a false notion of the research. The job for academics, she explains, is to be honest about where they are on that journey from idea to patient.
Of course, there’s also the challenge to ease any and all concerns the public might hold about nanotechnology. NCI’s Grodzinsky says this will require a larger effort from the health care community, but also participation from practicing physicians in the years to come.
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