ポリマーミセルを用いた新たなドラッグキャリアシステム

抄録

Concept and methodology of micelle-forming polymeric drug is reviewed. Drug targeting using drug carriers had been studied with three types of carriers ; liposomes, microspheres, and polymers. Now however, a successful example of drug targeting using any drug carrier has not been obtained because of low performance of drug carriers. A novel type of drug carrier system, micelle-forming polymeric drug is presented here. Polymeric micelles were constructed by amphiphilic structure of drug-polymer conjugate using a block copolymer, Expected superior features of the polymeric micelles as a drug carrier are long half-life in bloodstream, high water solubility, no long term-accumulation, high stability etc. Furthermore, functions which are needed for the ideal drug carrier can be shared by different polymer segments which become outer shell and inner core of the micelle. This separated functionality is favorable to get highly functionalized drug carrier system. Several unique characters and superior performance of the micelle-forming polymeric drug to the conventional drug carrier systems are described by the authors' work which is a conjugate of anticancer drug, adriamycin and poly(ethylene glycol)-poly(aspartic acid)block copolymer.