Cardiovascular diseases, such as angina and heart attack, represent a societal burden, accounting for more than 30% of deaths globally and spending yearly ~190 billion € in European healthcare. The chronic treatment of patients leads only to short-term benefits since the conventional therapies have several weak points.
The available drug-delivery methods, oral and intravenous, allow the drug to circulate systematically in the blood stream causing several side-effects and reducing its efficacy. Later, during the end-stages of the disease, the administration might become even more invasive, employing catheters or implantable pumps. The cardiovascular field needs fresh approaches to discover novel patient-friendly therapies that are more efficient and heart-specific.
