SBIR Phase I: Biomaterials and Chemistry to Enhance the Delivery of Medicines in the Body

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是改进一种在体内输送药物的新技术。局部医疗问题是指只影响身体特定部位的问题(如左膝疼痛)。这些挑战通常用到处都能用的药物来治疗，但只有很小一部分剂量真正到达了需要它们的区域。理想的药物应该只集中在预期的目标上，而不会与身体的其他部分相互作用。不幸的是，市场上的绝大多数药物都不是理想的药物。在患者开始接受特定的治疗之前，患者和医生需要仔细评估特定药物的有益治疗效果和有害副作用的风险。事实上，药物的安全性是市场批准的最关键障碍之一，也是药物开发和价格高昂的原因之一。拟议的项目认识到，内科医生和外科医生通常可以通过活组织检查、当地注射和手术暂时接触到当地医疗问题的病点。我们的药物输送技术允许植入材料来标记完成手术的身体部位。在植入材料后的几周内，当患者服用通常随处可见的药物时，剂量现在集中在植入材料的身体特定区域并激活。正在解决的技术障碍之一是确定该技术如何与不同的药物兼容。该项目将决定我们在体外和体内释放不同药物有效载荷的能力。这些进展将使药物更接近于针对当地医疗问题的理想药物，提高药物批准率并降低药物开发成本。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to improve a new technology to deliver medicines in the body. Local medical problems are issues that affect only a specific body part (e.g. left knee pain). These challenges are regularly treated with medications that go everywhere, but only a tiny fraction of the dose given actually reaches the area where they are needed. An ideal drug would concentrate only at its intended target and have no interactions with the rest of the body. Unfortunately, the vast majority of medications in the market are not ideal medications. Before starting a patient on a given therapy, the beneficial therapeutic effects and risk of deleterious side effects of a given medicine needs to be carefully evaluated by the patient and the physician. Indeed, the safety of a drug is one of the most critical hurdles for market approval and contributes to the high cost of drug development and prices.The proposed project recognizes that physicians and surgeons often have temporary access to disease sites of local medical problems via biopsies, local injections and surgeries. Our drug delivery technology allows an implantable material to mark the spot of the body where the procedure was done. For the next couple of weeks after implantation of the material, when the patient takes a medication that usually goes everywhere, the dose is now concentrated and activated at the specific area of the body where the material was implanted. One of the technical hurdles being addressed is determining how the technology is compatible with different drugs. The project will determine our ability to release different drug payloads in vitro and in vivo. These advances will bring medicines closer to ideal medications for local medical problems, improving drug approval rates and reducing the cost of drug development.