Nanopharmaceuticals: In Relevance to Drug Delivery and Targeting

A budding concern in nanopharmaceuticals has generated a number of advancements throughout recent years with a focus on commercialization and engineering novel products. The integration of nanotechnology into medical field has given birth to some new interdisciplinary areas of nanomedicine including nanopharmaceuticals. This is relatively a new class of therapeutic-containing nanomaterials that often have unique nanoproperties including small particle size, high surface-to-volume ratio, ability to improve solubility, multi-functionality, and the possibility of modulating their properties. Nanopharmaceuticals in delivery systems provide new opportunities for solving issues associated with problematic drugs; those were previously unsuitable for conventional oral or injectable formulations could now be formulated and designed to interact with the body at subcellular (i.e., molecular) scales with a high degree of specificity. Due to superior pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics and/or active intracellular delivery with reduced toxicity and enhanced bioavailability, this created great expectations in the field of drug delivery. With these advantages, nanopharmaceuticals have the ability to extend the economic life of proprietary drugs, thereby creating additional revenue streams. This chapter focuses on the potential application of nanopharmaceuticals including carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, dendrimers, nanoshells, niosomes, magnetic nanoparticles, polymeric NPs, and lipid NPs in drug delivery and drug targeting. This chapter also includes some of the FDA-approved nanopharmaceuticals meant for various routes of administration.