Abstract
Nowadays, prodrugs are no longer used as a last resort, rather, they are intentionally designed at the early stages of drug development. Lipidic prodrug strategy, where a drug moiety is covalently bound to a lipid carrier, was initially proposed half a century ago, yet, this approach still remains to be explored. Lipidic prodrugs can join physiological lipid metabolic pathways, and hence provide drug targeting via lymphatic transport or site-specific drug release, improve drugs' pharmacokinetic profile, overcome obstacles originating from biological barriers and bypass hepatic first-pass metabolism. Physiological pathways of lipid processing, uses of different lipidic prodrugs and their clinical benefits are overviewed. Overall, lipidic prodrugs present a promising approach for overcoming different obstacles and fulfilling various unmet needs in drug delivery/targeting.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2563-2571 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Future Medicinal Chemistry |
Volume | 11 |
Issue number | 19 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Jan 2019 |
Keywords
- biopharmaceutics
- cholesterol
- drug delivery
- fatty acid
- lipid
- lymphatic drug transport
- phospholipid
- prodrug
- triglyceride
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Molecular Medicine
- Pharmacology
- Drug Discovery