HP's Inkjet Technology Used to Administer Drugs

jedrick conner writes "Hewlett-Packard's microneedle technology, used in its inkjet cartridges, could soon be used in transdermal patches to deliver a time-controlled release of drugs to patients. Still at the prototype stage, the patch will likely be 25 mm square in size and 3 mm thick. It will incorporate an array of microneedles that are between 75 and 100 microns, which will penetrate the top dry layer of the skin, also known as the stratum corneum. Above the microneedles is an array of wells, [and] those wells can hold one or more drugs, the device has "an active mechanism to push the drug through the needle"."

Comments

Can't wait

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't wait till we see the black-market "refill kits" for these.

It's... getting... sooohoho... coooold.

Toner Refills

[sweatyboatman]

The printer comes free with your doctor's prescription. But it only comes with enough ink for one patch and refills are $1000.

Damn! Out of Yellow!

[kbob88]

I was doing fine until my anti-psychotic medicine ran out of yellow!

The material is the key... but it will still fail.

[jmil]

Transdermal drug delivery has been around for ages, as well as microfabricated needles. For a recent state-of-the-art, see:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/100/24/13755

The main problem (most of the physical fabrication issues have been overcome) is that almost any material used to fabricate the needles will quickly be recognized by the immune system, which will not only attempt to push the needles out but will also form a "fibrotic capsule" around the needles, preventing them from dispensing drug. How does HP intend to get around these problems? Smoke and Mirrors! This is the grand challenge of transdermal drug delivery, and it doesn't look like HP has gotten much further at all.

Additionally, I don't know about the (rest of the) heathens out there, but I wouldn't want needles permanently implanted in my arm, leaving my insides exposed to the outsides (and how do they plan to control backflow [i.e. bleeding] or prevent blood clots from blocking the needles, by the way??).

A much more promising approach for transdermal drug delivery is actually ballistic injection of (gold) (micro or nano) particles through the skin that are decorated with the drug of interest. This is reminiscent of Star Trek because it's an old idea that is based on some solid science. It might even be possible to use this for ballistic injection of DNA for vaccines, without having any of the drawbacks as described above for microneedles. Ask Dr. Google or see:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/7218/19491/00900385.pdf
and even better:
http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v5/n12/full/nri1728.html

You also have to keep in mind that the skin MUST be properly disinfected before either microneedles are implanted or ballistic injection is performed, otherwise you may introduce bacteria or other nasties into you deeper dermal layers (does anyone remember flesh eating bacteria?).