THERMONANO · Nanoassemblies for the subcutaneous self-administration of anticancer drugs

To counter the predicted drastic rise of new cancer cases over the next decades and to lower the dramatic financial burden of cancer treatments on patients and healthcare systems, innovative chemotherapies with high efficacy and reduced cost represent an urgent and unmet clinical need. Despite great enthusiasm for drug-loaded anticancer nanocarriers (e.g., liposomes, nanoparticles, micelles), their bench-to-bedside translation is not straightforward. Recent disappointments during clinical trials have fuelled concerns as to whether drug-loaded nanocarriers work any better than the free drugs. Thus, significant rethinking of drug delivery from nanocarriers seems inescapable. In the context of THERMONANO, I will develop a new drug delivery strategy that will be simple, efficient, comfortable for the patient and significantly less costly. The idea is to design drug-loaded nanoassemblies that can be administered subcutaneously to enable the self-administration of all kinds of anticancer drugs, including irritant and vesicant drugs. Not only could this approach lead to more easy-to-handle chemotherapies, it could also boost the development of at-home cancer chemotherapy.