Effect of Modifications in Poly (Lactide-co-Glycolide) (PLGA) on Drug Release and Degradation Characteristics: A Mini Review

The use of PLGA in the pharmaceutical industry has only increased as we move towards more and more advanced delivery carrier systems. The qualities of PLGA like biocompatibility, biodegradability and a tunable degradation and drug release has only helped in keeping up the release requirements desired for various delivery platforms. Fine-tuning the release and degradation rate is gaining more and more attention as researchers keep pushing the boundaries of novel delivery carriers. Various experiments are being performed to understand the degradation behavior of PLGA under various physiological and process-related conditions. The understanding of these parameters has helped formulate various ways in which one can fine-tune the properties that can lead to the release of active ingredients encapsulated within. Various techniques have been tried and tested including changes like chemical modification, physical blending and surface modifications and have found to be effective means of release modulation in delivery systems like parenteral, orals, topicals and tissue engineering scaffolds. In this review, all these experiments and implications thereon have been discussed in detail.