Conjugation of curcumin onto hyaluronic acid enhances its aqueous solubility and stability

► Polymer-drug conjugates have gained much attention largely to circumvent lower drug solubility and to enhance drug stability. ► Curcumin is widely known for its medicinal properties including its anticancer efficacy. One of the serious drawbacks of curcumin is its poor water solubility which leads to reduced bioavailability. ► We synthesized Hyaluronic acid-curcumin (HA-Cur) conjugate. ► The conjugates, interestingly found to assembles as micelles in aqueous phase. ► The formation of micelles seems to improve the stability of the drug in physiological pH.