GLOBAL CHALLENGES

Microneedles for Everything

Bandage-like patches could soon be used to deliver medicines and vaccines in a safe, effective and pain-free way. This microneedle technology is being developed by several teams of scientists and could be on the market in just a few years.

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Microneedles for Everything
As sniffle season comes on, journalists are rightly extolling the potential of new "microneedle patch" technology, debuted in August at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society by inventor Mark Prausnitz and colleagues at Georgia Institute of Technology, and subsequently announced as efficacious for administration of standard flu vaccine.

Transdermal patch technologies, which can be used to administer certain kinds of medicines via carrier molecules that pass through the skin, have been around for decades. Microneedle patches are a micro-mechanical spin on this theme, employing arrays of tiny needles to pierce the skin and enabling administration of a wider range of substances, including molecules too large to pass through the derma. The arrays are constructed using micro-fabrication technologies pioneered by the electronics industry.

Expected on the market within five years, microneedle patches show promise for enabling less painful, more convenient and better-controlled administration (including self-administration) of medication relevant to a host of conditions, including diabetes and cancer. But the patches alone don't make conventional hypodermics obsolete. Many medically useful molecules are still too large or wrongly shaped, or behave in aggregate in ways that frustrate administration via transdermal microneedles alone.

Next: Microneedle Use for Wider Range of Substances >>