Polymers in Drug Delivery Technology, Types of Polymers and Applications

Abstract

Polymers play a major role in the development of drug delivery technology by release of two types of drugs like hydrophilic and hydrophobic. In a synchronized manner and constant release of formulations over extended periods. There are numerous advantages of polymers acting as an inert carrier to which a drug can be conjugated, for example the polymer improves the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of biopharmaceuticals through various ways, like plasma ½ life, decreases the immunogenicity, build ups the stability of biopharmaceuticals, improves the solubility of low molecular weight drugs, and has a potential of targeted drug delivery. However they have their own limitations, such as the naturals polymers are most abundant and biodegradable but are difficult to reproduce and purify. Synthetic polymers have high immunogenicity, which prevent their long term usage. Non-biodegradable polymers are needed to be sugary after they release the drug at the targeted site. The general characteristic features that makes the polymer a potential candidate for drug delivery include, safety, efficacy, hydrophilicity, absence immunogenicity biological inactivity, sufficient pharmacokinetics, and presence of functional groups for covalent conjugation of drugs, targeting moieties, or formation of copolymer.

An Extensive Review on Chitosan as Versatile Material for Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Application

“…As parenteral delivery: Because extremely cleansed chitosan fractions were found to be neither toxic nor hemolytic, they have the ability to complex DNA and nuclease deprivation, and low molecular weight chitosan can be administered intravenously without accumulating in the liver, low molecular mass chitosan has the potential to be used in a synthetic gene therapy system [31].…”

Optimization of PCL-Peg-PCL Triblock Copolymer Micelles as Hydrophobic Drug Carrier With a 22 Full Factorial Design

“…Polymeric micelles have been received much attention in recent decades as a potential drug carrier. There are many advantages of using polymers as drug carriers including increasing drug stability, increasing drug solubility and having the potential to deliver targeted drugs [1]. The polymers can be used as a single or triblock with three constituent polymer blocks.…”

“…Triblock copolymers will form a core-shell structure, where the core as a hydrophobic block will be a place to accommodate the hydrophobic drug, while the shell as a hydrophilic block lining the core will maintain the stability of micellar polymer in an aqueous environment and affect its solubility in water. This type of triblock copolymer can be an ideal drug carrier candidate with the aim of improving poorly drug solubility [1,2].…”

“…A two-level of full factorial design method was used to evaluate the effect of two factors on the observed responses (PS, PI, and EE), the experimental condition was shown in table 1. The two factors were the ratio of ɛCL/PEG and concentration of SV with each of two levels, low (-1) and high (1). Optimize the experimental condition and analyze all of the results was used Design-Expert software (Stat-Ease Inc., Minneapolis, MN, US).…”

A Critical Review on Emerging Trends in Dry Powder Inhaler Formulation for the Treatment of Pulmonary Aspergillosis

“…Finally degradation-controlled release describes the release of drug when a biodegradable polymer degrades [56]. By maintaining the drugs concentration within the therapeutic range, polymeric drug delivery systems improve the efficacy and safety of drugs as well as reduce the dosing frequency, increasing patient compliance [54,57,58]. Apart from that, properties including biodegradability, high loading capacity, biocompatibility, non-toxicity and prevention on the degradation of drug are gaining the attraction of many researchers for the development of polymeric drug delivery systems [54].…”