Drug delivery technologies for autoimmune disease

Abstract

Importance of the field: Targeting autoimmune disease poses two main challenges. The first is to identify unique targets to suppress directly or indirectly autoreactive cells exclusively. The second is to penetrate target tissues to deliver specifically drugs to desired cells that can achieve a therapeutic outcome.

Areas covered in this review: Herein, the range of drug delivery methods available and under development and how they can be useful to treat autoimmune diseases are discussed. Polymer delivery methods, as well as biological methods that include fusion proteins, targeted antibodies, recombinant viruses and cell products are compared.

What the reader will gain: Readers will gain insight into the progression of clinical trials for different technologies and drug delivery methods useful for targeting and modulating the function of autoreactive immune cells.

Take home message: Several tissue-specific polymer-based and biologic drug delivery systems are now in Phase II/III clinical trials. Although these trials are focused mainly on cancer treatment, lessons from these trials can guide the use of the same agents for autoimmunity therapeutics.

Keywords::

• autoimmune
• drug delivery
• immunomodulation