Drug Delivery Accounts for 40% of Iran’s Nano Health Products Market
Drug delivery (40%) enjoys the largest share in Iran’s nanotechnology health sector. This segment includes lipid carriers (12%) and conjugates (28%), which indicates the high growth of targeted drug delivery technologies.
One of the most important advantages of nanotechnology in targeted drug delivery is increasing the effectiveness of drugs by reducing side effects.
By using nanocarriers, drugs can directly reach the target tissue without negatively affecting healthy cells. This feature is specially crucial in the treatment of cancer and chronic diseases.
In recent years, extensive research has been conducted in Iran on nanoliposomes, polymer nanoparticles, nanofluids, and nanoemulsions. Many of these technologies have been able to reach the level of industrial production and commercialization.
In a relevant development in April, Iranian researchers at the Faculty of Pharmacy of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences had succeeded in formulating, preparing and determining the features of pegylated doxorubicin nanoliposomes targeted with anti-nucleolin aptamer and studying the anti-tumor effects in vitro and in vivo in the mice with cancerous tumors.
“Doxorubicin (Dox) is an antineoplastic compound that has a wide range of antitumor activity and is used in many cases of cancer, including acute leukemia, Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, and breast and lung cancers. However, it has many side effects and researchers have being trying to reduce them,” said Mahmoud Reza Jafari, a Ph.D. student in pharmaceutics from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, who has cooperated in the project.
Noting that different studies have been conducted on obtaining a method for targeted drug delivery to the tumor in the last two decades, he said, “So far, the use of liposome has been the most important and best method.”
“The aim of this research was to prepare liposomes for effective targeting of cancer cells; therefore, after preparation of liposomes, their properties and features were observed and the anti-tumor effects and tissue distribution of these liposomes were investigated on tumor-bearing mice,” Jafari said.
“In this research, we reached a correct formula, which, of course, needs to complete the data to obtain the necessary licenses from the Food and Drug Organization, because this formula has proved effective in the animal phase (so far),” he underlined.
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