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

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是改进一种将药物输送到体内的新技术。局部医疗问题是指只影响身体特定部位的问题（例如左膝疼痛）。这些挑战通常是用药物治疗的，但只有一小部分剂量真正到达需要它们的区域。一种理想的药物只会集中在预定的目标上，而不会与身体的其他部分产生相互作用。不幸的是，市场上绝大多数的药物都不是理想的药物。在开始对患者进行特定治疗之前，需要由患者和医生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，也是导致药物开发成本和价格高昂的原因之一。拟议的项目认识到，医生和外科医生往往可以通过活组织检查、当地注射和手术，暂时进入当地医疗问题的发病地点。我们的药物输送技术允许一种可植入的材料在身体的手术部位做标记。在植入材料后的几周内，当患者服用一种通常可以全身使用的药物时，剂量现在被集中并在植入材料的身体特定区域被激活。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。该项目将确定我们在体外和体内释放不同药物有效载荷的能力。这些进步将使药物更接近局部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.