We appreciate the interest of Dr. Mujtaba Khan and his colleagues in our recently published review article [Citation1].
The goal of our article was to summarize the latest studies and the clinical translation status of docetaxel nanoformulations. We must admit that our statement of ‘However, only a few of them entered clinical trials and none was approved into clinic’ in the article was inaccurate. We missed the introduction of a nanosomal docetaxel lipid suspension (NDLS, DoceAqualipTM) developed by Intas Pharmaceuticals Ltd. which has been approved into market in India since 2013 for treatment of breast cancer, hormone-refractory prostate cancer, locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, non-small cell lung cancer and advanced gastric adenocarcinoma [Citation2]. NDLS was fabricated by lipid excipients and docetaxel was encapsulated in the lipid core [Citation3]. In the clinical study, the therapeutic efficacy of NDLS was compared with the commercial product of docetaxel, Taxotere. After intravenously injected at a dose of 75 mg/m2 in 72 patients who failed chemotherapy previously with locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer, NDLS showed an overall response rate of 35.5% compared with 26.3% for Taxotere. The safety of NDLS was comparable with Taxotere and no serious allergic reactions or swelling of face were observed [Citation4,Citation5].
In the course of writing our article, we also consulted a number of recently published comprehensive reviews (2014 ~ 2017) on nanomedicine [Citation6–Citation11] and docetaxel [Citation12], in which the research status of NDLS was not mentioned. Therefore, we misjudged the trend of development of new docetaxel formulations.
Once again, we would like to thank Dr. Mujtaba Khan and his colleagues for pointing out the deficiency of our article.
Declaration of interest
The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.
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