Perfluoroalkyl-containing Compounds as a Tool for Drug Delivery Systems

Drugs with medium-sized molecules, such as peptide and nucleic acid drugs, are considered to be next-generation drugs. However, several obstacles are currently preventing their widespread use in clinical applications, such as their low stability in the body and poor cellular membrane permeability. To overcome these issues, perfluoroalkyl-containing molecules with irreplaceable features are being developed as a very useful means of delivering drugs with medium-sized molecules. Drug delivery systems using perfluoroalkyl-containing molecules, fluorinated lipid-like molecules, fluorinated oligonucleotides, fluorinated peptides, and fluorinated polymers are described in this chapter.