Last chance for European nanomedicine

Image courtesy www.bionano.neu.edu

Instead of a reactive model where people are treated when they are sick, nanomedicine could allow doctors to monitor on the basis of known genetic risk, diagnose disease before there are any symptoms, give drugs that are precisely targeted, and use non-invasive imaging tools to show the treatment worked.

But to achieve this, Europe needs to translate disparate elements from proteomics, genomics, drug delivery, diagnostics and imaging, into a coherent framework for nanomedicine.

This is the conclusion of the expert group set up by the European Science Foundation to consider how to deliver the vision of nanomedicine, survey Europe's strengths and weakness, and develop a strategy for developing the field over the next ten years.

The 30 industrialists and academics commissioned to write the report had first to define the field. They concluded that it revolves around healthcare based on molecular tools and molecular knowledge, and embraces five main subdisciplines: therapeutics and drug delivery; clinical, regulatory and toxicology issues; nanomaterials and devices; nanoimaging; and analytical tools.

Key challenges

“One of the key challenges will be bringing together the interdisciplinary components and getting them to work together in true collaborations” said Ruth Duncan of the Centre for Polymer Therapeutics at Cardiff University, UK, who chaired the investigation, speaking at a meeting in Brussels to launch the report

The potential of nanotechnology lies in its ability to operate on the same cellular level as all the intricate biochemical processes that are involved in health and pathology. It is beginning to make an impact in healthcare in areas such as diagnostics that are able to instantly detect protein biomarkers in fingerprick samples of blood, imaging agents that highlight biochemical processes in real time, and techniques for delivering drugs to exactly where they are needed in the body, timing the release of a drug, or releasing several drugs in sequence.

And according to figures compiled by the US industry newsletter NanoBiotech News there are now more that 130 nano-based drugs and delivery systems and 125 devices or diagnostic tests in preclinical, clinical or commercial development, up from 61 drugs and 91 devices in development a year earlier.

But to date the overall impact of nanotechnology in healthcare has been patchy, the advances that have been made are largely unrelated and nanomedicine is not recognised as a formal discipline.

But Duncan believes many of the elements that the study identified as important for the development of a coherent approach to nanomedicine exist already: “After looking across Europe, I would say the challenge now is creating the right environment to pull these strands together and promote the convergence with medicine.”

Over and above the coordination that is required to generate a coherent approach to nanomedicines, new research is required to improve understanding of their toxicology, both within the patient and in the environment as a result of the release of nanoparticles.

Within Europe there are multiple funding sources, many of which are tagged ‘nano’. There is a talent base, with a number of research institutes involved in the field and a burgeoning industrial sector. And there is a growing body of clinical expertise with nanosized drug delivery systems, including liposomes, antibodies and polymers, in routine clinical use.

Failure to translate talent

“But as ever, there is a failure to translate this across, because Europe is lacking a long-term strategy for healthcare covering drug development and device development that is funded over the long time scales involved in getting new drugs to market,” said Duncan.

The report, “Forward Look Study on Nanomedicine” warns that Europe must develop a clear strategy and investment plan to ensure it does not miss out on the benefits of nanomedicine.

Beyond this it is necessary to provide government agencies and policy makers with a route map that will enable them to take a strategic approach to investing in nanomedicine, and ensure the regulatory agencies and related industrial and commercial interests are able to transfer advances in nanomedicine into general use quickly.

Duncan contrasted the European situation with the US, where the National Cancer Institute began a similar investigation at the same time as the European Science foundation. By September 2004 this had become a $144 million five-year plan to apply nanotechnology to treating cancer.

Similarly, the US National Institutes of Health has set up a Program of Excellence in Nanotechnology, focussed on the application of nanotech in heart, lung and blood diseases. In October 2005 NIH awarded grants totalling $42 million over five years to set up four Nanomedicine Development Centers.

In the European Union, meanwhile, the structure of pan-European research programmes, the diversity of different funding sources and the inability to work across disciplines mean that nanomedicine cannot be funded as a coherent discipline. Despite the European Science Foundation’s report and an earlier one, “European Technology Platform on Nanomedicine” published by the EU’s Research Directorate in September 2005, nanotechnology and healthcare will be separate themes in the upcoming Framework Programme 7.