Monoclonal antibody research skyrocketed in the 1980s. By the next decade, they hit the market and today, some of the drugs with the highest revenue are the “mabs” – Humira, Remicade, Rituxan, Avastin and Herceptin.
The market will work the same way with nanomedicine, projects Jeff Hrkach, former Chief Technological Officer at BIND Therapeutics. He presented the above slide and sold the concept of nanomedicine during a talk at this week’s BIO International Convention in Philadelphia.
“Nanomedicines can become the third pillar of drug development,” following pharmaceuticals and biologics – bringing physics more into play in the life sciences, he said. And applying nanotechnology to medicine is already underway:
When Investment Rhymes with Canada
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
A first generation application for nanomedicine was liposomal doxorubicin in ovarian cancer, said Neil Desai, vice president of strategic platforms at Celgene.
A second gen application, Desai continued – Abraxane, the cancer drug he actually worked on. Albumin-bound Abraxane was far more effective in treating pancreatic cancer than the drug alone.
“That’s the idea of nanomedicine here,” Desai said. “The tumor needs to feed itself. Let’s give it the food, then send in an agent to destroy it.”
The third generation, Desai said, is using nanomedicine in monoclonal antibody therapy. Nanomedicine comes in by attaching chemotherapeutic payloads to the antibodies, helping them enter the tumor cells and kill them.
Of course, it took more than two decades for the pharma industry to really integrate with biotechnology. And the FDA’s approach to nanomedicine is still largely in question. But nanomedicine will emerge into prominence like a Trojan Horse, said Laurent Levy, CEO of Nanobiotix. As of 2013, about 250 nanomedicine therapeutics were either approved or under investigation.
The speakers project applications in imaging, diagnostics, therapeutics and theranostics.
“If you look back in time, it was probably hard to predict which antibody drugs would be blockbusters,” Hrkach said. “I think nanomedicine will have its own blockbusters.”
