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Mike Weiner is the CEO of Biophan, Inc., a company developing technologies designed to make biomedical devices safe and image compatible with the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) environment.

Nanotech Briefs: How is nano applicable to the medical/health industries?

Mike Weiner: Nanotechnologies enable a variety of new materials to be developed that have broad impact for the healthcare industry. The requirements of the healthcare industry are extremely high and they work with very advanced materials, so the capabilities enabled by nanotechnologies are well suited to this industry. These include additives to make polymers and composite materials stronger, nanoparticles to enhance imaging and delivery therapeutics and nanomaterials to provide highly controlled drug delivery.
The requirement of the medical device and pharmaceutical sectors for advanced materials are so high, that nanotechnologies are a natural fit to answer some of these needs.

NB: It is said that nanotech is advancing or eventually will advance the following areas: detection, treatment, and prevention/cure. Can you comment on how nanotechnology research is being used to address these areas?

Weiner: Nanoparticles are already in use as contrast agents, for various imaging modalities. Biophan is currently working to develop some of the next generation of image agents employing nanomagnetic particles to provide improved MRI contrast agents. These agents will enable differential imaging of different types of tissue more effectively than current agents by enabling differentiable species of particles that can be bound to different targeting agents.
There are several companies, including Biophan’s Nanolution division, developing the use of nanomaterials as drug delivery agents. There are a variety of approaches being developed, including the use of nanoparticles as a delivery vehicle for drugs – to help target the drugs to specific organs, to reduce the systemic toxicity of certain drugs or to enhance the efficacy of certain drugs. Nanomaterials can also be used to provide advantaged drug elution form the surface of medical devices, or to enhance other drug delivery modalities including oral delivery, parenteral, inhalation and transdermal delivery of drugs.

NB: What is being done to ensure that the technology is safe and effective to be used medically?

Weiner: There is an extremely rigorous evaluation and approval process required before the marketing of any devices in the medical device industry. This pathway includes initial laboratory work; preclinical efficacy, toxicity and safety testing; clinical trials and a very rigorous approval process overseen by the US Food and Drug Administration and the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, which oversees new medical devices.
Nanomaterials developed for the healthcare industry will go through this very thorough evaluation before being approved, and will go through an extensive set of preclinical tests before any clinical trials are permitted. We feel that this process is reasonable, and provides a very safe pathway for the development of new devices and materials that incorporate nanotechnologies.

NB: What still needs to be accomplished to move ahead and achieve some of the goals set forth by the nanotech community in terms of the medical/health industry?

Weiner: It is difficult to really set a timeline for implementation of new materials in the healthcare industry. Materials that are being developed today can easily take five years to reach the market. I think that over the next 10 years, you will start to see many novel materials based upon nanotechnology become common place, both in healthcare applications as well as for other uses.
Within 10 years, we would expect to see more and more medical devices, and diagnostic and therapeutic treatment options, start to take advantage of the improvements made possible by nanomaterials. It will be an exciting and revolutionary time in the healthcare industry.

For questions, contact Biophan at: info@biophan.com. Visit www.biophan.com