Dear colleagues,

Nowadays, the development of new pharmaceutical formulations is mainly focused on the achievement of a controlled and/or smart release. To reach this goal, excipients with the highest degree of specificity are needed. In this sense, the use of natural materials in pharmaceutical formulations is a well-accepted solution due their better biocompatibility than synthetic additives.

Because of the great biodiversity in marine organisms, the materials obtained from these sources exhibit a high portfolio of potential smart formulations. Perhaps this is why marine polymers are the most widely studied and used as excipients in the development of new dosage forms. Polymer production from algae has attracted much attention in the scientific community, thus opening a potential biotechnological market. Marine bioadhesive analogs and biomimetic synthetic materials have been tested as well, with quite promising results. Chitin and chitosan are of marine origin, and constitute a group of materials of proven utility in the fabrication of medicines. Apart from their usage as excipients, they have the potential to be used as adhesives and antimicrobial materials, which makes it possible to expand their use in many biomedical devices. Among carbohydrates (specifically those obtained from algae), agar, agarose, carrageenans, and some others are extensively used as thickeners and gellifiers, not only in conventional drug formulations but also in advanced drug delivery systems as a carrier combined with external stimuli. New solutions based on collagen, protein hydrolizates, and gelatins extracted from marine animals are also being explored.

The Editors of this Special Issue on ‘’Marine Polymers in Drug Release’’ are convinced that it will constitute an inflection point in the current research of drug delivery formulations. We also hope that the manuscripts published in this Issue will inspire other researchers to focus their investigations on more bio-sustainable and natural resources from oceans and seas.

Dr. Juan Rubio
Dr. Maria-Dolores Veiga
Dr. Aitana Tamayo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Marine Drugs is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Pharmaceutical formulations
• Controlled or smart drug release
• Polysaccharides of marine origin
• Chitosan
• Collagen