Electrospun methacrylate-based copolymer/indomethacin fibers and their release characteristics of indomethacin

Three methacrylate-based copolymers [i.e., poly(methacrylic acid-co-methyl methacrylate) (E-L100), poly(ethyl acrylate-co-methyl methacrylate-co-trimethyl-ammonioethyl methacrylate chloride) (E-RLPO), and poly(butyl methacrylate-co-(2-dimethylaminoethyl) methacrylate-co-methyl methacrylate) (E-EPO)] were successfully electrospun into fibers, using ethanol (EtOH) as the spinning solvent. However, electrospinning of these methacrylate-based copolymers and indomethacin (10% by weight of the copolymer) was only successful when an equivolume of EtOH and ethylacetate (EA) was used as the co-solvent system. The drug-loaded as-spun copolymeric fibers appeared to be flat, with the size ranging between 1.2 and 2.5 mu m. At 24 h, the amount of the drug released from these drug-loaded as-spun copolymer fibers was about 55%, 30%, and 18% for drug-loaded as-spun E-EPO, E-L100, and E-RLPO fibers, respectively.