Introduction

Many drugs that act on the brain cannot reach it as they are blocked by the blood-brain barrier. The invention concerns the production of nanomedicines designed to cross efficiently the blood-brain barrier and deliver drugs that need to act on the central nervous system.

Technical features

The Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB) prevents many medications from reaching their site of activity at proper concentrations, representing a challenge for the therapy of several central nervous system diseases (tumors, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson, Huntington…). Some existing technologies exploit ligand-receptor interactions to cross the barrier. Such strategies can’t efficiently transport drugs to the brain since are intrinsically limited by the saturation mechanism of the receptors.

Thanks to an innovative formulation, our novel Nanoparticles can protect and deliver drugs efficiently to the central nervous system reducing, therefore, their eventual side effects while increasing efficacy. These innovative Nanoparticles are made with a lipid molecule (naturally present in the human body) and/or biodegradable and biocompatible polymers. On the surface of Nanoparticles, a natural molecule serves as ligand to cross the BBB through a mechanism that avoids endogenous saturation and allows to increase the drug’s maximal dose deliverable to the brain.

Possible Applications

• Delivery of drugs for neurodegenerative diseases (Huntington, Parkinson, Alzheimer…);
• Delivery of drugs for brain tumors (glioblastoma);
• Delivery of molecules against ageing.

Advantages

• Blood-brain barrier crossing with high efficiency;
• Flexibility in the delivery of several drug types;
• Use of natural, biocompatible and biodegradable components;
• Easy scale-up of production;
• Low cost materials.