Microfluidics: Accelerating Nanomedicine Research and Development

Microfluidic devices are micrometer-scale fluidic circuits used to manipulate liquids at the nanoliter scale. The ability to control the mixing of fluids and the continuous nature of the process make it apt for solvent/antisolvent precipitation of drug-delivery nanoparticles. We describe how the commercially available NanoAssemblrâ„¢ microfluidic platform is used for formulation development, preclinical development and clinical development of lipid nanoparticles encapsulating therapeutic nucleic payloads. The advantages of microfluidics are illustrated through examples from published scientific literature with applications in immuno-oncology, hematology, neurological disorders, vaccines, and genome editing. Particular emphasis is placed on examples of nanoparticle formulations that have been tested in vitro and in vivo. Fine control of process parameters afforded by microfluidics, allows optimization of nanoparticle quality and encapsulation efficiency. Automation improves the reproducibility and optimization of formulations. Furthermore, the continuous nature of the microfluidic process is inherently scalable, allowing optimization at low volumes, which is advantageous with scarce or costly materials, as well as scale-up employing multiple microfluidic mixers performing identical unit operations in parallel. Given these advantages, microfluidics is poised to become the new paradigm for nanomedicine research and development.