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Exosome-based candidates move into the clinic

Exosomes — small extracellular vesicles that are shed by cells — have long offered promise as drug delivery systems for small molecules, DNA, RNA and other biologic payloads. The first of these are now in the clinic.
  1. Megan Cully
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Nearly 50 years ago, scientists noticed that cells in culture ‘exfoliated’ small sacs of then unknown function. Subsequent work has shown that these structures, now known as extracellular vesicles or exosomes, can contain RNA, proteins and other molecules, packaged up by parent cells and sent over to their neighbours. Cells seem to use them to communicate with each other.

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Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 20, 6-7 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41573-020-00220-y

Updates & Corrections

  • Clarification 17 December 2020: The description of the first agent from Codiak to enter clinical trials has been updated to ‘engineered exosome-based therapeutic’ to distinguish it from non-engineered exosome-based therapeutics, which are not the focus of the article.

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