Transforming a pharmaceutically active molecule into a polymerizable prodrug is a crucial step for conjugated polymer-based drug delivery systems. However, to date, imidazole has not been utilized as a pro-moiety, and there are only few theranostic conjugated polymer particles capable of drug release and their drug loading is insufficient for real world applications. Access to conjugated polymer particles with high prodrug loading that degrade into products of little to no toxicity during the release of their cargo in response to oxidative stress, would provide a powerful drug delivery system. The combination with strong photoacoustic contrast would overcome some of the described current problems in theranostic nanoparticle systems.