ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an up to date snapshot of nanomedicines either currently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), or in the FDA clinical trials process. Nanomedicine is an emerging field that combines nanotechnology with pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences, with the goal of developing drugs and imaging agents with higher efficacy and improved safety and toxicological profiles. Polymeric nanoparticles are perhaps the simplest form of soft materials for nanomedicine applications owing to their facile synthesis and wide applicability across all aspects of the field. Polymeric micelles consist of self-assembled polymeric amphiphiles tailored for controlled delivery of hydrophobic drugs. Protein nanoparticles span a number of different nanomedicine classes, from drugs conjugated to endogenous protein carriers to engineered proteins where the active therapeutic is the protein itself, and to combined complex platforms that rely on protein motifs for targeted therapeutic delivery. The utilization of liposomal platforms for drug delivery has had a significant impact on pharmacology.
