Needle-free injection technology

There are a wide variety of power sources available to designers of needle-free injection technology. There has... 

Algorx has the rights to develop the PowderJect needle-free injection technology in all areas outside of DNA vaccines. The device is helium powered and was described more fully earlier in this chapter. 

Needle-free injection is an intradermal drug delivery technology that can be considered as a hybrid of transdermal and parenteral technologies. The technology was first proposed in the early twentieth century... 

Powder injection applies many of the principles of pulmonary delivery of dry powders to the lungs The drug has to be in the form of very small particles, is dispensed from a reservoir, and is delivered as an aerosol i.e., particles are dispersed in a gas. Liquid or dissolved drug can be delivered by precipitation or adsorption onto carrier particles. The big difference with pulmonary delivery is the momentum at which the particles are delivered. Driven by a high-pressure helium gas stream, the particles travel fast enough to penetrate the outer layer of the skin, the stratum corneum. The design of devices to deliver needle-free injection of solids was pioneered by researchers at the University of Oxford who founded PowderJect Pharmaceuticals PLC in 1993 (now PowderMed Ltd.) to develop the only powder-based technology so far. Since that... 

As previously described, liquid needle-free injection was the first needle-free technology to be developed and has been the focus of the vast majority of companies working in the industry. Indeed, many millions of... 

The needle-free injection field has evolved enormously in recent years. Companies have come and gone, taking with them some technologies. This section summarizes the technologies and the companies behind them that are currently active in the held. A review of some of the more prevalent technologies was published in 2002 while a more comprehensive list of companies that have developed needle-free injectors, for both human and veterinary use, is available at http / / www.cdc.gov/nip / dev/jetinject.htm. 

Needle-free devices have demonstrated consistent delivery to the epidermis, the dermis, the subcutaneous layer, and the intramuscular space. While questions remain over the ability of this technology to target the dermis or the muscle across a very wide range of subject morphologies, published data suggest that the delivery is at least as good as that achieved with a needle which remains the gold standard for all parenteral injections. 

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