Nanomedicine technologies could find an increasing place in various areas and applications of the healthcare sector including drug delivery, drug discovery and development, diagnostics and medical devices.

"Nanomedicine holds the promise of site-specific therapeutic action and consequently, fewer side effects," says Technical Insights Industry Analyst Rajaram Sankaran. "Such site-specificity holds the promise of a better risk-benefit ratio and thus enhances the prospects for nanomedicine applications."

The advent of nanomedicine and techniques for the early diagnosis of diseases could usher in a new era of superior prophylactic or preventive medicine. By using preventive medicine, treatment for diseases could be initiated even before preliminary symptoms appear.

Prophylactic interventions might help postpone or even avoid diseases altogether. Nanomedicine could therefore have a huge impact on people's lives, substantially improving their physical health and quality of life.

If nanomedicine's adoption rates in pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, and drug delivery companies are anything to go by, its prospects in the healthcare industry seem bright.

Nanocrystal technology, for instance, is being used in drug formulation and the new chemical entities screening in the discovery phase of drug development. Quantum dot particles are being applied in high-content drug screening and in the detection of breast cancer cells among others.

However, as with other new technologies, nanomedicine also faces its own set of issues. Scalability is one of its biggest technological challenges. While large-scale production makes better economic sense, this is likely to be a complex task, especially when manufacturing th
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Contact: Julia Paulson
jpaulson@frost.com
210-247-3870
Technical Insights
2-Aug-2004