Synthesis of novel monomers and copolymers from 1-vinylpyrrolidin-2-one: attractive materials for drug delivery systems?

Journal article, 2006

Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) is a synthetic, non-toxic, water-sol. polymer commonly used in a wide range of applications including several pharmaceutical applications. One example of an important application is the controlled release and delivery of therapeutic agents into sites of inflammation or tumors. However, PVP lacks reactive groups, which limits the possibility of adding new functions to the polymer in order to modify its phys. and chem. properties. Furthermore, large differences in radical reactivity between 1-vinylpyrrolidin-2-one (NVP) and most other monomers lead to compositional drift during copolymn. This complicates the introduction of reactive groups into the polymer using this method. Monomers that are derivs. of NVP itself are expected to show smaller differences in radical reactivity and therefore provide a way of prepg. PVP with adjustable properties. Here we present the synthesis of five NVP-based monomers and their use in the prepn. of functional PVP with adjustable properties in terms of soly., loading of functional groups, and molar mass. The results show the possibility of tailoring PVP for different biomedical applications e.g. drug delivery systems. [on SciFinder (R)]