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(doxorubicin, taxol, and taxotere, for example) for new indications such as brain cancers. There appears to be a distinct possibility that some of the taxol-carrier conjugates not only breach the BBB, but also counter the multi-drug resistance caused by P-glycoprotein in the brain. The market size of these anti-cancer drugs is over US$ 3 billions, although it is substantially smaller than during their heydays. It has recently been demonstrated that it is also possible to prepare BBB-permeable AZT-carrier conjugates as a possible treatment for AIDS encephalopathy. And this technology is applicable to all other nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors such as lamivudine and stavudine. The current AIDS patient number is estimated to be well over 30 million, and ca. 10-15 % of these patients are expected to develop encephalopathy.
Another immediate future area of opportunity is use of the proprietary technology for the development of NCEs in the intractable CNS disease category including Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease and other mitochondrial diseases, especially since a number of our carriers can readily overcome the BBB and also target mitochondria. The direct and indirect cost to the society of Alzheimer’s disease alone is estimated to be $148 billion in 2009. The worldwide sales of drugs for brain diseases total more that $65 billion in 2009 and projected to be more than $105 billion by 2015, despite the fact that most difficult brain and CNS diseases cannot be effectively treated presently. The 'non-conjugate' protocols for delivering drugs such as anti-sense nucleotides, siRNA and genes, and transdermal delivery of small molecule drugs are promising for the near terms, but the market size is somewhat difficult to estimate at the moment. However, it is easy to imagine how quickly the market will develop, once the effective, non-viral delivery of these ionic biomacromolecules is clinically demonstrated.
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