Lysine, leucine and phenylalanine bearing degradable polymers represent the next stage of evolution in degradable polymers from aliphatic polyesters, polyurethanes and polyamides. The pursuit of these changes has been to achieve better control over biocompatibility, degradation and release properties for medical and pharmaceutical applications. Polyesteramides (PEAs) are based on α-amino acids, aliphatic dicarboxylic acids and aliphatic α-ω diols. These PEAs allow with minimal chemical modification the tailoring of degradation to be either predominantly enzymatic, hydrolytic and with the introduction of disulphide bearing building blocks even reduction sensitive, triggered degradation. Furthermore, these polymers degrade without a significant lowering of pH an effect known to aggravate inflammation and the foreign body response. The degradation characteristics of PEAs have been optimized so as to achieve better improved in vitro – in-vivo correlation. The biocompatibility and biodegradation of these bioinspired biomaterials for drug delivery in ocular, and vascular setting will be presented as well as recent developments to develop systems for intracellular drug delivery. The extensive safety and biocompatibility data on these biomaterials as drug eluting matrices has lead to their first use in humans in a drug eluting stent and new applications pursued in the ocular space.

Tunable amino acid based biodegradable polyesteramides for drug delivery

255th National Meeting (2018)

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