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Injections Without The Ouch

Published:
24-Aug-2004

By Jessica T. Lee
The Boston Globe

Next month, a Franklin, Mass., company will begin selling a futuristic device that painlessly injects medications through microscopic pores in the skin. Holes created by low-frequency vibrations instead of high-anxiety needles.

The hand-held ultrasonic device applies sound waves to the skin for 15 seconds, disrupting a protective membrane to allow fluids to flow in or out. The openings allow larger molecules, including many drugs to pass through quickly. After 24 hours, the skin returns to normal. Called SonoPrep, the $2000.00 device has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, Sontra, the manufacturer has announced. For now, it will be used to quickly anesthetize skin with lidocaine cream,in five minutes instead of the current one hour, to prepare patients, especially children, for painful procedures, including needle pricks and the insertion of catheters and IV's. But company officials say they are developing other applications, including fast administration of pain medications to cancer patients, dispensing flu vaccines, and continuous monitoring of diabetic's blood sugar levels.

The product, invented in the laboratory of MIT bioengineer Robert Langer, is at the leading edge of a wave of new technology being developed to deliver medicine painlessly, more efficiently, and in a more targeted way than pills. Researchers say these efforts could make needles obsolete in medicine."I think the important point, to me, is not just that the FDA approved it. It's a validation of the technique,"Langer says. "It opens the door to do all kinds of needle-less injections. It's kind of like Star Trek, they zap people and the stuff goes through."

A needle-less injector, called Injex and made by Equidyne Corp., shoots a stream of insulin so fine it penetrates the skin without a needle. Sontra has entered into a joint developement agreement with Bayer Diagnostics for a needle-free, continuous glucose monitor, using the SonoPrep technology. Sontra officials hope to have FDA approval for a continuous glucose monitor by 2007 or 2008.

 

SOURCE: Jessica T. Lee
The Boston Globe