Integrating nanotechnology and biotechnology, nano-biotechnology is a technology that helps assemble equipment and systems with complex functions from the molecular level, and applies them to biological research. Nano drug-loading technology represents an important research achievement made in the application of nano-biotechnology to new drug formulations.
Nano drug-loading technology is a research hotspot and development direction in modern pharmaceutics. Within nanoscale and through modern physical-chemical methods, drugs and polymeric materials are configured according to their physical space. The intermolecular interaction enables rearrangement, folding and bonding of molecular structures so that supermolecular subject-object material structure is formed. Through the weak interaction of water molecule hydrogen-oxygen bonds, nano-structure particles are self-assembled and generated.
Nano drug-loading technology plays an irreplaceable role in the research and application of modern pharmacy. Currently, more than 50% of the drugs used have dissolution and absorption problems. Featuring advantages of improving drug targeting and reducing drug toxic and side effects, nano drug delivery system has become a unique means to boost the bioavailability of unstable and difficult-to-dissolve drugs.
Materials of drug carriers include natural and synthetic materials. Natural materials are favored by scientists for their biocompatibility, easy degradation and toxic-free degradation products. The most notable biopolymer material is deacetylation chitin-chitosan, which can be abundantly found in shrimp and crab shells. It is worth mentioning that as a nano drug carrier, chitosan features high polymer easy modification and boasts characteristics of high polymer carrier prodrugs.
As a research-oriented manufacturing enterprise that was the earliest in developing chitosan and applying it to health-related industries in China, Chaozhou Chetsan Biochemical Food Industry Co., Ltd. produced a chitosan health product in 1995, and obtained approval for producing health foods from Chinese Ministry of Health in 1997. Years of clinical practices have proved that Chitotin Capsule, a chitosan health food, is an international new type of immunomodulator and has excellent effect in treating thyrotoxic exophthalmus.
On that basis, the senior researcher from Chetsan Biochemical Food Industry Co., Ltd. founded Guangzhou Bionery Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Bionery) in the International Business Incubator of Guangzhou Science City in 2006. The company conducted intensive studies of chitosan as nano drug carrier material; and took the lead in achieving solvent-free, pollution-free and semisolid total synthesis of a polymeric surfactant by acoustic, photic, magnetic and other modern physical means. As tested by relevant testing organizations, the product had higher surface activity, wider scope of application and better use effect than other surfactants. Thanks to the outstanding performance of chitosan polymeric surfactant, the company successfully developed a new type of drug preparation-nanosuspension in 2012. In 2015, the company successfully prepared chitosan polymeric nano carrier prodrug. Through nano-micelle self-assembly technology, multiple effective ingredients (such as curcumin, berberine, taxol, resveratrol, etc.) of natural drugs were packaged in the prodrug, and drug-loading nano-micelle aqueous solution with an average grain diameter of 50nm was made. So far, the company has industrialized all its technologies.
As a leader in new drug preparation technologies, Bionery has obtained multiple invention patents, laid a solid foundation for pharmaceutical innovation, and created a broad R &D platform for new technologies of targeted drug delivery. Chitosan polymeric nano drug-loading technology and material will meet the demand for application in pharmaceutical chemicals, traditional Chinese medicine, crude drugs and biochemical drugs. Chitosan carrier prodrugs, be them oral drugs, injection preparations or new formulations of transdermal absorption, will inevitably carry the mission of the era; play the strengths of micronization, targeting, slow release and good compliance; and lead to the ultimate perfection in new drug preparation research and new product manufacturing system.