We have come up with the general idea of how our product should look like as seem in previous posts. We however did to figure out how it would work.
One idea is to coat the needles with the necessary allergen by having the needles be the opposite charge as the allergen. This will help the coating stay in the body when the needles are removed.
Are we able to have the same concentration and dose on the needles that are being used with current allergy tests?
Will having microneedles remove the reaction of the control meaning the only reaction will be the body reaction to the present allergen?
If not, how will be judge if there is an allergic reaction or not?
These are questions that need to be researched and answered moving forward.
I posted a useful review on drug delivery and microneedle material choices and geometry. There is a host of information we can use to guide our choice there, and it's still early enough to make those choices! I'll keep that charge idea in mind. I remember there being talk about increasing the rate of reaction for coated or fully-dissolvable microneedles with some modification.
ReplyDeleteThe review is excellent and covers each level, including design, manufacture, and the delivery itself. Check out 2.3 and 2.4 especially. It underlines concerns about dissolvable microneedles for our application and suggests some good properties of the hollow microneedle, such as rapid delivery.
I think one of the references talks about the phenomenon you describe:
[177] S.L. Banks, R.R. Pinninti, H.S. Gill, P.A. Crooks, M.R. Prausnitz, A.L. Stinchcomb, Flux across of microneedle-treated skin is increased by increasing
[177] S.L. Banks, R.R. Pinninti, H.S. Gill, P.A. Crooks, M.R. Prausnitz, A.L. Stinchcomb, Flux across of microneedle-treated skin is increased by increasing charge of naltrexone and naltrexol in vitro. Pharm. Res. 25 (2008) 1677-1685
DeleteGood thinking into the types of controls you'll need for these - the needle itself, the buffer solution or a placebo to check for the inflammation caused just by piercing/dissolving are both good to have.
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