Recent advances on patents in poly(ethylene glycol)-based drug delivery.

Taking advantage of the peculiar features of poly(ethylene glycol), a wide range of applications in the field of drug delivery has been devised. In these last years, a series of patents have been applied on the use of this polymer in delivering of biopolymers, as peptides, proteins and nucleic acid derivatives, as well as of low molecular weight drugs. Moreover, several related strategies have been outlined for the modification of biocompatible materials employed in the field of drug delivery. In this review we focused our attention on the patents appeared in the last years; the description is not exhaustive but the reported citations have been selected as examples of the aforementioned applications.