Conjugation to macromolecular carriers is a proven strategy for improving the pharmacokinetics of drugs, with many stable polyethylene glycol conjugates having reached the market. Stable conjugates suffer several limitations: loss of drug potency due to conjugation, confining the drug to the extracellular space, and the requirement for a circulating conjugate. Current research is directed toward overcoming such limitations through releasable conjugates in which the drug is covalently linked to the carrier through a cleavable linker. Satisfactory linkers that provide predictable cleavage rates tunable over a wide time range that are useful for both circulating and noncirculating conjugates are not yet available. We describe such conjugation linkers on the basis of a nonenzymatic β-elimination reaction with preprogrammed, highly tunable cleavage rates. A set of modular linkers is described that bears a succinimidyl carbonate group for attachment to an amine-containing drug or prodrug, an azido group for conjugation to the carrier, and a tunable modulator that controls the rate of β-eliminative cleavage. The linkers provide predictable, tunable release rates of ligands from macromolecular conjugates both in vitro and in vivo, with half-lives spanning from a range of hours to >1 y at physiological pH. A circulating PEG conjugate achieved a 56-fold half-life extension of the 39-aa peptide exenatide in rats, and a noncirculating s.c. hydrogel conjugate achieved a 150-fold extension. Using slow-cleaving linkers, the latter may provide a generic format for once-a-month dosage forms of potent drugs. The releasable linkers provide additional benefits that include lowering C max and pharmacokinetic coordination of drug combinations. metronomic chemotherapy | implant M any drugs and drug candidates are suboptimal or ineffective because of a short duration of action. For example, peptides and proteins with promising therapeutic value often have serum half-lives of only minutes to hours. One solution to this problem involves conjugation to carriers such as polyethylene glycol (PEG), the Fc portion of IgG, serum albumin, and other longlived macromolecules. The large carriers retard kidney filtration and hence increase plasma half-life of the attached drug. Much success has been realized thus far with PEG as the macromolecular carrier. PEG is nontoxic and nonimmunogenic, and the plasma half-life is a function of hydrodynamic size. Conjugation of drugs to PEG with molecular mass ∼40 kDa has been successfully used with peptides, nucleic acids, and small molecules and can afford half-lives of up to ∼7 d in humans; as of 2011, 10 PEGylated peptide-based drugs were approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and ∼40 were in clinical trials (1, 2).All of the currently marketed PEG-protein conjugates are permanently PEGylated. Attachment of large PEG moieties often reduces activity of the drug, and higher concentrations of conjugate are necessary to achieve the required biological activity. A further limitation is that permanen...