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  <front>
    <journal-meta>
      <journal-id journal-id-type="iso-abbrev">Pharmacophore</journal-id>
      <journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">pharmacophorejournal.com</journal-id>
      <journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">Pharmacophore</journal-id>
      <journal-title-group>
        <journal-title>Pharmacophore</journal-title>
      </journal-title-group>
      <issn pub-type="epub">2229-5402</issn>
    </journal-meta>
    <article-meta>
      <article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">pharmacophorejournal.com-6876</article-id>
      <article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.51847/MT3QwGFdub</article-id>
      <article-categories>
        <subj-group subj-group-type="heading">
          <subject>Original research</subject>
        </subj-group>
      </article-categories>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>Predicting Long-Acting Injectable Release Using Polymer Degradation, Drug Loading, and Microsphere Morphology</article-title>
      </title-group>
                    <contrib-group>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Petrov</surname>
                <given-names>Ivan</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff1" ref-type="aff">1</xref>
                                        </contrib>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Ivanova</surname>
                <given-names>Olga</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff1" ref-type="aff">1</xref>
                                                            <xref rid="cor1" ref-type="corresp" />
                          </contrib>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Smirnov</surname>
                <given-names>Dmitry</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff2" ref-type="aff">2</xref>
                                        </contrib>
                  </contrib-group>
                  <aff id="aff1">
            <label>1</label>Department of AI-Based Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
          </aff>
                  <aff id="aff2">
            <label>2</label>Department of Computational Drug Engineering, Faculty of Pharmacy, Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
          </aff>
                          <author-notes>
            <corresp id="cor1">
              <bold>Address for correspondence:</bold> Prof. Wael Abu Dayyih, Department of
              Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mutah University, Al-Karak 61710, Jordan.
                          </corresp>
          </author-notes>
                    <pub-date pub-type="epub">
        <day>28</day>
        <month>02</month>
        <year>2026</year>
      </pub-date>
      <volume>17</volume>
      <issue>1</issue>
      <fpage>33</fpage>
      <lpage>42</lpage>
      <permissions>
        <copyright-statement>
          Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Pharmacophore
        </copyright-statement>
        <copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
        <license>
          <ali:license_ref xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/"
            specific-use="textmining" content-type="ccbyncsalicense">
            https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/</ali:license_ref>
          <license-p>This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of
            the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows
            others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate
            credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.</license-p>
        </license>
      </permissions>
      <abstract>
        <title>A<sc>BSTRACT</sc></title>
        <p>Long-acting injectable microspheres are an important platform for sustained drug delivery because they can maintain therapeutic exposure over extended dosing intervals. Their release behavior remains difficult to predict because polymer degradation, drug loading, and microsphere morphology interact across burst, lag, and erosion-controlled phases. Current formulation development often depends on empirical iteration, in which candidate batches are manufactured and tested before mechanistic understanding is complete. This trial-and-error workflow can slow development when small changes in polymer grade, drug distribution, or particle structure alter the full release profile. The objective of this predictive-model article is to describe a machine learning framework for forecasting the in-vitro release curve of long-acting injectable microspheres from formulation and morphology descriptors. The same framework could be extended conceptually to estimate in-vivo pharmacokinetic behavior when suitable bridging data are available. A gradient-boosted tree or multi-output regression model would be trained on curated long-acting injectable formulation records. Inputs would encode polymer chemistry and degradation properties, drug loading and physicochemical features, and quantitative microsphere morphology descriptors such as particle size, porosity, surface area, and internal structure. Conceptually, the model could predict the release profile under different formulation and processing conditions while ranking the relative influence of polymer, drug, and morphology features. Such predictions would be expected to support virtual screening of formulation variants before experimental confirmation. A model-informed formulation strategy could help shift long-acting injectable microsphere development from empirical testing toward rational selection of polymer, drug-loading, and morphology targets. This approach should be evaluated prospectively before being used to support high-impact development or regulatory decisions.</p>
      </abstract>
      <kwd-group>
                <kwd>Long-acting injectables</kwd>
                <kwd>PLGA microspheres</kwd>
                <kwd>Predictive modeling</kwd>
                <kwd>Machine learning</kwd>
                <kwd>Polymer degradation</kwd>
                <kwd>Drug release</kwd>
              </kwd-group>
    </article-meta>
  </front>
</article>