Nanoparticles of the right size can penetrate these “gates” and passively diffuse into the tumors [24]. Thanks to this generation of chemotherapies, patients are now benefiting from new treatment strategies for delivering drugs through nanotechnology carriers with lower systemic toxicity and improved therapeutic efficacy [21]. The economic success of these nanomedical products is driven by an urgent demand of new anticancer therapies able to better fight this highly aggressive and increasingly frequent disease. In fact, the FDA problematic regulatory process,

Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the unsteady funding situation, and the expensive and lengthy R&D process did not thwart the development and success of Doxil and Abraxane. Despite being the most profitable, anticancer delivery systems are not the only clinically approved nanomedical products. In fact, advances in nanomedicine are bringing breakthroughs in other problematic areas of medicine. Following Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical are some examples of successful nano-enabled biomedical

products MI-773 currently Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical on the market. The first successful application of nanoparticles in the clinic was Omniscan, the leading injectable paramagnetic resonance product of Amersham. This contrast agent was approved for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), launched in 1993, and utilized ever since both in neurology, to detect strokes and brain tumors, as well as in cardiology. This contrast agent—originally developed by Salutar—has prolonged half-life in patients with renal Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical insufficiency. After the conduction of preclinical testing, Salutar was acquired by Nycomed, which in turn purchased Amersham International, in 1997. Currently, Amersham and its rights Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical on Omniscan are propriety of General Electric Healthcare. The deal was closed in 2003 for US $9.5 billion on an all-stock transaction. According to Yan et al. [25] and as confirmed by Spiess [26], there are 12 different MRI contrast agents currently on the market

[27]. Magnevist was marketed by Bayer Schering Pharma as their first intravenous contrast agent employed in the clinic. In 2004, the company demonstrated that the product safely and effectively eases the visualization of cranial and vertebral anatomy among cancers and wounds, and since then it is not diffused worldwide with that specification of use [28]. Another competitor is OptiMARK, a gadolinium-based contrast agent (the only FDA-approved for administration by power injection) for MRI of brain, liver, and spine [29] produced by Mallinckrodt; it allows the visualization of lesions with atypical vascularity. Finally, MultiHance is the first extracellular fluid contrast agent to pose interaction with plasma proteins.