Has nanomedicine lived up to its promise?

Nanomedicine for diagnosis and treatment of disease, as a discipline has been around for several years, with the first nanotherapeutic product being approved in 1995. Worldwide its importance was recognized with the setting up of several nanomedicine centres in 2004-2006. Many of these centres were set up to accelerate the speed of translation of the research. In this article we review, with a broad brush, the progress made in the last 15 years, and examine whether the translation efforts have been successful, and also evaluate whether such successes have changed the medical landscape. Possible reasons for the relatively long time to commercialization for nanomedicine products are also explored.