LNP innovation: tissue specificity, aided by AI

The longstanding challenge of getting lipid nanoparticles to the right tissues has limited the nucleic acid delivery modality’s applications, despite their size and immunogenicity advantages. Companies aim to overcome that bottleneck by engineering the particles’ subunits, with some turning to AI to learn the rules dictating tissue tropism, and steer clear of patent thickets. 

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) dominate the non-viral nucleic acid delivery space. Following the large-scale success of COVID-19 vaccines, the field is heating up; at least five companies founded in the past five years with an LNP innovation focus have disclosed more than $100 million in venture funding (see Table)...