Starting from the natural amino-acid L-tyrosine, a diphenolic monomeric molecule was developed using carbodiimide mediated solid-phase synthesis techniques. This monomeric molecule was polymerized by reacting it in equimolar proportions with suitable dihalophosphates to yield novel biodegradable polyphosphates containing peptide linkages and phosphoester linkages alternating in the polymer backbone. The biodegradability of such a polymer is expected to arise from the hydrolytic degradability of the phosphoester linkages and the enzymatic degradability of the peptide linkages in the polymer backbone. Design of such a polymer is expected to make a significant contribution to biomaterials research, regarding drug delivery device and tissue engineering scaffold applications. The monomer was obtained by a novel solid phase carbodiimide-mediated amide coupling process. The subsequent polymers were obtained by solution-phase dehydrochlorination polycondensation reactions in the presence of a suitable acid acceptor. The synthesized polymers were characterized by C-13 NMR P-31 NMR and FTIR for their chemical structure, by GPC for their molecular weight distribution, and by DSC and TGA for their thermal transition characteristics. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.