Intelliject's novel epinephrine autoinjector: sharps injury prevention validation and comparable analysis with EpiPen and Twinject

Abstract

Currently marketed epinephrine autoinjectors (EAs) are prone to misuse that may lead to injury or a missed dose. A novel EA (NEA) (Intelliject Inc) was created to reduce such injuries by including features such as a unidirectional perceived injection end and a retractable needle. To validate the sharps injury prevention features of the NEA and to obtain feedback on, and preference for, features of the NEA compared with Twinject and EpiPen. Twenty-eight health care professionals experienced with using the EpiPen or Twinject each injected 18 NEAs into an orange and provided confirmation of needle injection and retraction. Half of the injections were conducted using wet hands to replicate diaphoretic hands or wet environmental conditions. Participants provided feedback via a post-test questionnaire and gave ordinal preference rankings for the NEA, EpiPen, and Twinject based on shape, size, ease of use, ease of training, and overall preference. Participants also described known cases in which the Twinject or EpiPen was not correctly administered. For all 505 tested NEAs, the needle injected and retracted as intended. For overall preference, 100% of the experienced health care practitioners ranked the NEA first. Half of the participants recalled incidents in which the EpiPen or Twinject did not work as intended or caused an injury. The sharps injury prevention feature was verified for the NEA, and health care professionals experienced in the use of EpiPen and Twinject for allergic emergencies perceived the NEA to be a safer and preferred alternative.