Microneedles have been highly touted in the drug delivery industry as of late. Hundreds of them can be placed on a single patch. They’re pain-free because they’re so small and do not hit nerve endings, but can still deliver precise amounts of a drug or vaccine. So one imaging company is developing technology that it believes microneedle researchers need.
Michelson Diagnostics, based in the U.K., is reporting that its VivoSight OCT imaging system was used to evaluate the performance of a new microneedle drug delivery technology by researchers at Queen’s University Belfast. The research by Ryan Donnelly, to be published in the Journal of Controlled Release, shows how the VivoSight system was used to directly image the microneedles penetrating the skin. Those results helped evaluate how far apart the needles were spaced and how much force is required.
“The successful use of OCT in this study could prove to be a key development for polymeric micro-needle research, accelerating their commercial exploitation,” Michelson Diagnostics quotes the paper’s authors as saying in a release. The company then goes on to claim that it is the “only clinical technology that can image the needles in situ, in real time. The high resolution and extended penetration depth of VivoSight mean that researchers can really understand how the needles interact with the skin.”
- read the Michelson release