Automated Compounding System for Personalized Injection
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current pharmaceutical administration methods, particularly oral administration, face challenges with bioavailability issues for certain agents like vitamins and biologics, leading to incomplete absorption and varying patient needs, necessitating personalized injection treatments that are not efficiently addressed by existing compounding systems.
Innovation Solution
An automated system for compounding pharmaceutical agents for injection treatments, which includes a housing with inventory chambers for single-use capsules, mechanisms for selecting and transferring agents to a product container under positive or negative pressure, and automated disposal of used capsules, integrated with information technology for personalized medicine delivery.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If oral administration is used for pharmaceutical agents, then ease of administration is improved, but bioavailability and absorption completeness deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the oral mechanical administration route with an automated parenteral injection system that uses mechanical actuators, pumps, and needles to deliver medication directly into the patient's body, eliminating gastrointestinal absorption issues while maintaining ease of use through automation
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables self-administration through automated injection mechanisms where the device itself performs the injection process without requiring manual needle handling by the patient, combining the reliability of parenteral delivery with the convenience of self-service
2Reliability
If personalized compounding is implemented for each patient, then treatment effectiveness is improved, but device complexity and time consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the compounding process into discrete modular steps: selecting individual capsules from inventory, transferring contents through automated mechanisms, and formulating personalized mixtures, allowing complex personalized compounding to be achieved through simple sequential operations
Solution Approach 2:
Pharmaceutical agents are pre-loaded into individual capsules and stored in the device inventory before use, enabling rapid assembly of personalized formulations without requiring complex real-time compounding operations during patient treatment
3Reliability
If single-use capsules are used for each pharmaceutical agent, then contamination risk is reduced, but device complexity and disposal requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system employs inexpensive single-use sealed capsules that are disposed of after one use, eliminating the need for complex sterilization and cleaning mechanisms while ensuring complete prevention of cross-contamination between different pharmaceutical agents
Solution Approach 2:
The capsule acts as an intermediary container that is sealed until the moment of use, providing a simple yet effective barrier against contamination that eliminates the need for complex sterile handling procedures during the compounding process
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables safe and efficient personalized medicine delivery, improving treatment outcomes for patients by ensuring effective doses of vitamins, growth hormones, and other agents, and expanding physician services with precise compounding and monitoring capabilities.
Implementation Method 1
transferred under positive or negative pressure
Implementation Method 2
transferred under positive or negative pressure
Data Source
AI summary
An automated system (100) for compounding pharmaceutical agents for injection treatment of a patient includes a housing (110) enclosing an interior space; an inventory structure (130) having a plurality of chambers (131) for individually holding one or more pharmaceutical agent—containing single use capsules (102), wherein each capsule has a volume capacity of from about 0.1 to about 10.0 mL liquid; means (140) for selecting capsules in accordance with predetermined pharmaceutical agents contained in said capsules; means (150) for moving the selected capsules to a processing area; means (165,166) for sequentially transferring a controlled quantity of the predetermined pharmaceutical agent with direct fluid communication from each selected capsule to a product container under positive or negative pressure; and means (151) for automatically discarding spent capsules from which the pharmaceutical agents have been removed after a single use.