Polymer-drug conjugates: idea and implementation

Polymer-drug conjugates include polymer prodrugs, PEGylated biomolecules, and antibody-drug conjugates

Today I want to talk about polymer-drug conjugates. What’s the idea behind such conjugates? What are the advantages and challenges? And are there any polymer-drug conjugates in clinical use?

I became interested in this topic during my PhD, as I was developing a polymer carrier material for ocular use. Since my carrier should be water-soluble, conjugation was the best way to incorporate drugs into the formulation. The concept of polymer-drug conjugates had already been described in the 1970s,[1] but hadn’t really been pursued in ocular drug delivery. Here, I will highlight some advantages of this technology and if you are interested to learn more, you can read my PhD thesis here.
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Polymers in Ophthalmology (Part 1)

Let’s talk about polymers in ophthalmology. It’s no secret that I’m fascinated by the various applications of polymers. I have also spent the last couple of years developing polymer-based formulations for back of the eye drug delivery for my PhD. Now, I was curious to find out where else polymer materials are used in and around the eye. I started with a quick search that turned into a week of reading, because it seems, polymers and eyes go really well together. To cover all the clinical applications (that I found), I decided to split this post into several parts. Here is part 1 dealing with Viscoelastic & Drug Delivery Formulations.

Scheme of the eye and all its parts
Figure 1. Scheme of the eye and its parts.

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