Grant: Idea to Innovation

This project is aimed at finishing the engineering development of innovative intradermal needlefree injection devices. These drug delivery platforms offer the potential to effectively, rapidly and economically deliver drugs and vaccines into the skin, in liquid or powder form, while eliminating injection pain and infection risks ususally associated with needles. Following the successful demonstration of the basic capabilities of this technology, this Idea-to-Innovation Phase IIa project is aimed at optimizing the design of those devices such that they can reliably deliver specific payloads to targeted skin layers. Achieving this objective is a pre-requisite towards successfully commercializing this technology with pharmaceutical/medical device partners. In our patented devices, pharmaceutical substances, in the form of liquid or solid micron-size particles, are projected at high speed towards the skin, which enable them to penetrate to a certain depth where they reach specific tissues and/or cells in order to produce the required therapeutic or prophylactic effect. Our goal is to first demonstrate the potential of the devices themselves, from a technology point of view. Therefore, we want to fulfill key objectives pertaining to the design and engineering of our delivery devices: 1- Optimize the geometry and operating parameters of the powder delivery device in order to: - demonstrate control over depth of penetration and - maximize delivered dose. 2- Complete the engineering of a pre-commercial single-dose pre-filled disposable powder delivery device while fulfilling regulatory requirements and minimizing anticipated manufacturing cost. 3- Perform a successful in-vitro demonstration of the liquid delivery device. 4- Demonstrate a laboratory prototype for a multi-dose device.