Therapeutic application of peptides and proteins: parenteral forever?

Varied therapeutic peptides and proteins represent a rapidly growing part of marketed drugs and have an undisputed place alongside other established therapies. Nevertheless, such biodrugs have several drawbacks that hinder their therapeutic application. These are undesirable physicochemical properties, such as variable solubility, low bioavailability and limited stability. These issues can be overcome by addition of stabilizing agents and directed injectable administration, which can however result in low patient compliance. Hence, there is a drive in the biotechnology industry to produce needle-free and more user-friendly drugs, and this has led to the growth of nano-enabled drug delivery systems in the last decade. As discussed here, nanobiotechnology is becoming a commercially feasible and promising opportunity for oral, pulmonary and transdermal administration routes.