Is there a reason? Was there no efficacy in the clinic, or was the preparation of liposomal cytokines unfeasible? Has everything in the field been discovered?
I see there are a few companies that use liposomal cytokines, but there are relatively few recent papers on cytokine/protein encapsulation methodology.
due to the low stability of liposomal preparations and difficulty of scaling up.
I personally think liposomes are still the best systemic drug delivery system out there, despite their poor(ish) physicochemical properties, high cost, and difficulties in scaling up.
More generally, I think that systemic delivery has been left aside and there is the tendency to prefer other routes. If you have a look at the marketable products, you will see that there are little-to-none nanosystems. including polymeric nanoparticles, micelles and liposomes themselves. The idea now is to go back to the time when an active drug was "modified" to prolong its circulation time and, hopefully, target a specific district in the body. As an example, antibody-drug conjugates are really stepping up as THE HOT TOPIC in systemic delivery.
The other problem, which is a big problem in my opinion, is at cellular level. No one knows why liposomes (or other controlled-release DDS) work so well once inside a cell. There are many ideas, for example, on how nanoencapsulation can overcome multi-drug resistance. But they are ideas, there is no clear-cut explanation. And if you want to go to animal studies or preclinical trials, you will eventually have to address this problem.
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