Dinanath Gaikwad
Department of Biopharmaceutics, Government College of Pharmacy, Karad, Dist-Satara-415124, Maharashtra, India.
Abstract:
Polymer-drug conjugates have demonstrated several advantages over the corresponding parent drugs, including fewer side effects, enhanced therapeutic efficacy, ease of drug administration, and improved patient compliance. Polymer-drug conjugates are nano-sized hybrid constructs that covalently combine a bioactive agent with a polymer to ensure not only its efficient delivery to the required intracellular compartment but also its availability within a specific period of time. Polymer-drug conjugates such as HMPA Copolymer-Doxorubicin (PK1), HMPA Copolymer-Doxorubicin-Galactosamine (PK2), HMPA Copolymer-Camptothecin, HMPA Copolymer-Platinate (AP5346), PEG-Camptothecin (Pegamotecan) and PEG-SN38 (EZN-2208) have main role in treatment of a wide variety of human pathologies, from diabetes, heart failure, and brain stroke. Apoptosis as a molecular target allows the design of second-generation polymer conjugates for the treatment of a wide variety of human pathologies, from diabetes, heart failure, and brain stroke to diseases such as cancer. Xyotax™ (PG-TXL) has become the first polymer-drug conjugate for the delivery of cytotoxic chemotherapeutic agents to advance to clinical Phase III trials. Future generation of polymer-drug conjugates will have to meet a number of challenges, including the development of novel polymers with modulated rates of degradation, versatile conjugation chemistry allowing site-specific attachment of targeting moieties, and polymerization.
