Copolymers of absorbable polyoxaesters

Claim 1

A polyoxaester copolymer formed from a polyoxaesters copolymer having a first divalent repeating unit of formula IA: [--O--C(O)--R.sub.30 --C(O)--] IA a second divalent repeating unit of the formula IB: [O--C(O)--C(R.sub.1)(R.sub.2)--O--R.sub.3 --O--C(R'.sub.1)(R'.sub.2)--C(O)--] IB and a third repeating unit selected from the group of formulas consisting of: [--O--R.sub.4 --].sub.A, II [--O--R.sub.5 --C(O)--].sub.B, III ([--O--R.sub.5 --C(O)].sub.P --O--).sub.L G XI and combinations thereof, wherein R 30 is an alkylene, arylene, arylalkylene, substituted alkylene, substituted arylene and substituted alkylarylene provided that R 30 cannot be --[C(R 1 )(R 2 )] 1-2 --O--(R 3 )--O--[C(R' 1 )(R' 2 )] 1-2 --; R 1 , R' 1 , R 2 and R' 2 are independently hydrogen or an alkyl group containing 1 to 8 carbon atoms; R 3 is an alkylene unit containing from 2 to 12 carbon atoms or is an oxyalkylene group of the following formula: --[(CH.sub.2).sub.C --O--].sub.D --(CH.sub.2).sub.E -- IV wherein C is an integer in the range of from 2 to about 5, D is an integer in the range of from about 0 to about 2,000, and E is an integer in the range of from about 2 to about 5, except when D is zero, in which case E will be an integer from 2 to 12; R 4 is an alkylene unit containing from 2 to 8 carbon atoms; A is an integer in the range of from 1 to 2,000; R 5 is selected from the group consisting of --C(R 6 )(R 7 )--, --(CH 2 ) 3 --O--, --CH 2 --CH 2 --O--CH 2 --, --CR 8 H--CH 2 --, --(CH 2 ) 5 --, --(CH 2 ) F --O--C(O)-- and --(CH 2 ) F --C(O)--CH 2 --; R 6 and R 7 are independently hydrogen or an alkyl containing from 1 to 8 carbon atoms; R 8 is hydrogen or methyl; F is an integer in the range of from 2 to 6; B is an integer in the range of from 1 to n such that the number average molecular weight of formula III is less than about 200,000; P is an integer in the range of from 1 to m such that the number average molecular weight of formula XI is less than about 1,000,000; G represents the residue minus from 1 to L hydrogen atoms from the hydroxyl groups of an alcohol previously containing from 1 to about 200 hydroxyl groups; and L is an integer from about 1 to about 200.