Amadge:

Targeted chemotherapeutic delivery using polyelectrolyte complexes for cancer treatment is a platform design for efficacy enhancement and loading of anti-cancer drugs. Amadge formulation is a targeted drug delivery system based on antibodies for controlling and/or treating HER2+ breast cancer in women. This system consists of biopolymer-PEG micelles carrying a chemotherapeutic agent which is conjugated with a monoclonal antibody. The product is a monoclonal antibody-based targeted chemotherapeutic delivery with a significant competitive efficacy and lower side effects. The carrier and the preparation method can be applied as a platform to prepare other targeted drug delivery systems using different antibodies or drug pairs for the treatment of other diseases. Amadge’s Drug Delivery System is designed to enhance the efficacy and selectivity of anti-cancer therapeutic drugs. In this startup, a multi-purpose platform of a bio-compatible and nano-micellar drug is designed as a carrier for using different types of anti-cancer drugs. On the other hand, this platform can be rearranged by loading special anti-cancer drugs that are prescribed through personalized medicine.

What are the Novelties?

In this project, we are proposing micelles comprising of monoclonal antibody (mAb) terminated polymer-PEG di-block as building blocks. In this system, the nano-micelle formation can ideally take place by forming a complex of the polymer chain with opposite charges in the core and hydrodynamic stabilization by a super hydrophilic polymer chain in the shell. The Nano-scale of the system also allows us to exploit non-specific cancer cell-targeted delivery through the Enhanced Permeation and Retention (EPR) phenomenon. On the other hand, using polymer chains with hydrophobic/hydrophilic chains as a starting material provides the opportunity for improving the micelle stability and absorbing of both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs by controlling the polymer structure. This system has the potential to specifically bind to targeted receptors on the cancer cells, therefore the efficacy of the drug delivery system is further improved compared with the conventional drug delivery systems. Drug loading is controlled by hydrophobic and ionic interactions between partially ionic entities of the polymer chain system and the cytotoxic drug. Drug release is also controlled by changes in the pH in the endosome of targeted cancer cells. To the best of our knowledge, there is no report in the literature dealing with targeted chemotherapy based on di-block polymer micelles as a drug carrier.