Patent ID: 8030459

Claim:
A conjugate comprising a carrier substituted with one or more occurrences of a moiety having the structure: wherein each occurrence of M is independently a pharmaceutically useful modifier; the carrier comprises a biodegradable biocompatible polymer selected from polyacetals or polyketals and the molecular weight of the carrier is between about 0.5 and about 1500 kDa; wherein at least a subset of the polyacetal repeat structural units have the following chemical structure: wherein for each occurrence of the n bracketed structure, one of R 1 and R 2 is hydrogen, and the other is a biocompatible group and includes a carbon atom covalently attached to C 1 ; R x includes a carbon atom covalently attached to C 2 ; n is an integer; each occurrence of R 3 , R 4 , R 5 and R 6 is a biocompatible group and is independently hydrogen or an organic moiety; and for each occurrence of the bracketed structure n, at least one of R 1 , R 2 , R 3 , R 4 , R 5 and R 6 comprises a carbonyl group suitable for oxime formation; wherein at least a subset of the polyketal repeat structural units have the following chemical structure: wherein each occurrence of R 1a and R 2a is a biocompatible group and includes a carbon atom covalently attached to C 1 , and at least one of R 1a , R 2a , R 3 , R 4 , R 5 and R 6 comprises a carbonyl group suitable for oxime formation and each occurrence of L M is independently an oxime-containing linker.