Transdermal drug delivery - Medical devices
Product and/or Licensing
Oportunities
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Scientists at Leiden University have
developed and produced an electronic
device to apply microneedle arrays to
the skin. Microneedles are designed to
be painless whilst overcoming the
natural barrier function of the skin
that is located in the outermost layer
of the epidermis, the stratum corneum
(SC). Ideally, the microneedles
penetrate the SC and reach the viable
epidermis in order to deliver the
injected substance, which will then
reach the blood vessels that reside in
the dermis through further diffusion.
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Since no nerve endings reside in the
epidermis, this method should results in
painless drug delivery (see figure).
Recently it was shown that using manual
application, piercing the skin was
unsuccessful with microneedles equal to
or shorter than 300 μm, which was
postulated to be caused by the
elasticity of the skin that enabled
folding of skin around the needles.
Therefore, an electronic device was developed
that allows the insertion of microneedles into
the skin with a fixed predetermined (high)
velocity.
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This device was found to overcome the
elasticity of the skin, using 300 μm needles, as
its use resulted in more effective and higher
consistent application/puncturing. Furthermore,
the device also overcomes the interindividual
and intraindividual variation of skin
elasticity, which is caused by factors such as
age and skin region, through the fixed
predetermined velocity.
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