Advances in polymer
and drug delivery sciences have led to the evolution of engineered fibers for
use as drug delivery vehicles; the design of pharmacologically active fibers has
increased. Drug eluting fibers have the potential to be woven into
biotextiles for the release of a multitude of therapeutics with micron-scale
accuracy. Techniques exist to make polymer fibers, but only a small subset
is suitable for drug encapsulation with wet spinning as one such amenable
technique. Wet spinning has many advantages such as it can be done at
ambient temperatures, used with water-soluble drugs and a broad range of
bioactive agents, and it is most similar to microsphere encapsulation
techniques. Moreover, wet spun fibers have a high surface area to volume
ratio for mass transfer and efficient drug release.
Therapeutic delivery
performance has been significantly better than current bolus delivery
strategies. However, little is know about the effects of drug
incorporation on the mechanical integrity of the fibers. Rapid drug
‘burst’ from microfibers is a limitation. Prior research has attempted to
create double-walled microspheres to address ‘burst’ and control drug
release. However, this work has
been inconclusive. There remains an urgent need for ‘smart’ fiber delivery
systems that are multi-functional, and provide both physical and pharmaceutical
support.
This invention is a
novel method to prepare and use a multi-layer, polymeric microstructure ‘smart’
delivery system for controlled release of therapeutics. This stable
delivery system can be physically manipulated/easily shaped, and delivers
controlled release of therapeutics while maintaining mechanical strength.
The innovation may be in the form of a fiber, suture, sphere, implant or
scaffold. It may be used with any drug/agent type (protein, small
molecule, hydrophobic/philic), and administered by any route (oral, transdermal,
etc.) and in any formulation with conventional pharmaceutical
excipients.
The market niches are
medical instruments and devices, pharmaceutical drug delivery and/or
therapeutics, and scientific R&D. Applications include use in medicine
for production of surgical sutures, dialysis devices, therapeutic implants,
wound dressings, and tissue engineering (TE) scaffolds for regenerative
medicine, as well as in scientific R&D laboratories that investigate and
advance these fields.
