A Needle-Free Jet Injection System for Controlled Release and Repeated Biopharmaceutical Delivery.

Mojiz Abbas Trimzi,Young-Bog Ham

doi:10.3390/pharmaceutics13111770

Abstract

Swift vaccination is necessary as a response to disease outbreaks and pandemics; otherwise, the species under attack is at risk of a high fatality rate or even mass extinction. Statistics suggest that at least 16 billion injections are administered worldwide every year. Such a high rate of needle/syringe injection administration worldwide is alarming due to the risk of needle-stick injuries, disease spread due to cross-contamination and the reuse of needles, and the misuse of needles. In addition, there are production, handling, and disposal costs. Needle phobia is an additional issue faced by many recipients of injections with needles. In addition to a detailed literature review highlighting the need for needle-free injection systems, a compressed air-driven needle-free jet injection system with a hydro-pneumatic mechanism was designed and developed by employing an axiomatic design approach. The proposed injection system has higher flexibility, uninterrupted force generation, and provides the possibility of delivering repeated injections at different tissue depths from the dermis to the muscle (depending on the drug delivery requirements) by controlling the inlet compressed air pressure. The designed needle-free jet injector consists of two primary circuits: the pneumatic and the hydraulic circuit. The pneumatic circuit is responsible for driving, pressurizing, and repeatability. The hydraulic circuit precisely injects and contains the liquid jet, allowing us to control the volume of the liquid jet at elevated pressure by offering flexibility in the dose volume per injection. Finally, in this paper we report on the successful design and working model of an air-driven needle-free jet injector for 0.2–0.5 mL drug delivery by ex vivo experimental validation.

Highlights

History dictates how outbreaks and pandemics of contagious diseases and viruses have been fatal to humankind and cattle, with the number of deaths exceeding millions of humans and animals
The design parameters were used to measure the pressure intensification caused by inlet compressed air pressure variation from 0.2 to 0.5 MPa
0.5 MPa could intensify the liquid up to 54.77 MPa. Many other factors such as exact friction losses, leakage losses, and inertial effects were ignored for ease of calculation, and the designed pressure was kept higher than the required pressure for safety reasons so that even if there were more losses than considered, the injection system would still work well

Summary

Introduction

History dictates how outbreaks and pandemics of contagious diseases and viruses have been fatal to humankind and cattle, with the number of deaths exceeding millions of humans and animals. The need to save human beings and animals from fatal diseases has always existed. One major contributory factor in treating infectious diseases (among other factors) is appropriate drug delivery [7,8,9]. The current routes of pharmaceutical administration can be categorized into intradermal and mucosal drug administration [12]. Intradermal routes of drug delivery include liquid jet injections [13,14], ballistic powder inoculation [15], Pharmaceutics 2021, 13, 1770.

Methods

Results

Conclusion