The industrial demand of natural polysaccharides or their chemically modified
derivatives have increasing due to their safety, biocompatibility, non-toxicity and
biodegradability. Modified polysaccharides are industrially acceptable as disintegrating
agent, thickening agent, gelling agent foam stabilizer, swelling agent, emulsifying agent,
encapsulating agent, binding agent, etc. In addition, biopolymers are acceptable as
materials for nanoparticles for clinical application. This is due to their versatile traits,
including biodegradability, biocompatibility and low immunogenicity. These tailor-made
materials are now commercially available and thus can give competition to already
available synthetic excipients. Considering the current needs to produce stable nanoparticle
systems, the chemical modification of these polysaccharides further improves their
physicochemical as well as mechanical properties. The attempts have been made to obtain
nano-carrier for therapeutic purposes and with their variation in materials and process
preparation. This chapter is aimed at discussing the application of these modified
polysaccharides with their physico-chemical characterization. Further, the factors
influencing these process variables taken care off while making them are also enlightened
in addition to influence of modifying polysaccharides on the drug release properties of
pharmaceutical dosage forms and for other purposes in pharmaceutical industry.
Keywords: Polysaccharide, nanoparticle, microparticle, carboxmethylation,
thiolation, grafting, crosslinking, ionotropic gelation, drug entarpment efficiency,
nanoprecipitation, sonication, spraydrying.
