Critical Design Strategies Supporting Optimized Drug Release from Polymer–Drug Conjugates

The importance of an adequate linking moiety design that allows controlled drug(s) release at the desired site of action is extensively studied for polymer‐drug conjugates (PDCs). Redox‐responsive self‐immolative linkers bearing disulfide moieties (SS‐SIL) represent a powerful strategy for intracellular drug delivery; however, the influence of drug structural features and linker‐associated spacers on release kinetics remains relatively unexplored. The influence of drug/spacer chemical structure and the chemical group available for conjugation on drug release and the biological effect of resultant PDCs is evaluated. A “design of experiments” tool is implemented to develop a liquid chromatography‐mass spectrometry method to perform the comprehensive characterization required for this systematic study. The obtained fit‐for‐purpose analytical protocol enables the quantification of low drug concentrations in drug release studies and the elucidation of metabolite presence. and provides the first data that clarifies how drug structural features influence the drug release from SS‐SIL and demonstrates the non‐universal nature of the SS‐SIL. The importance of rigorous linker characterization in understanding structure‐function correlations between linkers, drug chemical functionalities, and in vitro release kinetics from a rationally‐designed polymer‐drug nanoconjugate, a critical strategic crafting methodology that should remain under consideration when using a reductive environment as an endogenous drug release trigger.