Researchers at the Korea-based Saemam Medical Foundation announced that they successfully developed the world’s first nanocoating-based drug delivery technology, which enhances the effectiveness of drugs and other pricy drug ingredients by minimizing drug metabolism in the liver. This is how the technology works: expensive drug ingredients are dissolved in water, ethanol or a small amount of herb oil; various oil and fat ingredients are added before nanocoating the dissolved drug ingredients with fat-soluble films by using ultrasonic waves. Then, they are left to dry with the addition of polyéthylene glycol, própylene glycol and sugars. Since the nano-coated drugs are not easily metabolized in the liver, their therapeutic effects will not diminish significantly before they arrive at their targets - i.e. diseased organs or cells.
Herb oils produced at Pocheon Herb Island were used in developing this technology, a great example of technological convergence between herb oil extraction technology and cutting-edge cancer drug carrier technology. The cancer research center of the Saemam Medical Foundation predicts that this drug carrier technology would make significant improvements in the delivery of drugs that are negatively affected by liver metabolism.
On top of that, this technology features the mixture of water and oil without using any surfactants, so this technology can be applied to a wide range of areas including healthy food and cosmetic technologies. Above all, this technology can be utilized in enhancing the dermal absorption and percutaneous penetration of cosmetic ingredients, so this technology is expected to be employed in manufacturing skin care products that contain vitamins.
