Hollow Microneedle Array With Peripheral Support For Consistent Penetration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing microneedle arrays face challenges in consistently inserting needles to a desired depth in the skin and maintaining proper contact during drug delivery, leading to variability in penetration depth and efficiency.
Innovation Solution
The design of an array of hollow microneedles with a central portion and a canted peripheral portion, where the microneedles have distinct base and tip shapes and a hollow channel, facilitates consistent penetration by reducing contact between the skin and non-microneedle surfaces, ensuring uniform delivery of pharmaceutically-active compounds.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a hollow microneedle array is pressed against the skin to deliver therapeutic agents, then drug delivery through the stratum corneum is enabled, but significant variability in penetration depth occurs among microneedles in the array
Solution Approach 1:
The microneedle array is divided into distinct functional zones: a central portion containing microneedles and a peripheral portion without microneedles. This segmentation allows the peripheral portion to serve as a support structure that contacts the skin first, stabilizing the array during insertion and ensuring uniform penetration depth for all microneedles in the central portion.
Solution Approach 2:
The peripheral portion is designed to contact the skin surface before the microneedles penetrate. This preliminary contact establishes a stable base and ensures proper positioning, allowing the microneedles to insert to a consistent depth without variability caused by improper array positioning or skin contact irregularities.
2Ease of operation
If microneedles are designed with hollow channels for drug delivery, then liquid flow path from reservoir to skin is enabled, but ability to consistently insert needles to desired depth is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The device is segmented into a central microneedle portion and a peripheral support portion. The peripheral portion maintains contact with the skin during drug delivery to stabilize the array, while the hollow microneedles in the central portion deliver drugs through their channels. This segmentation ensures both insertion consistency and reliable contact maintenance throughout the delivery process.
Solution Approach 2:
The peripheral portion acts as an intermediary element between the microneedle array and the skin. It provides continuous contact and stabilization during the drug delivery process, ensuring that the hollow microneedles maintain their position and insertion depth while delivering therapeutic agents through their hollow channels.
3Productivity
If force is applied to the microneedle array for material delivery into the skin, then transdermal delivery is achieved, but consistent force application for uniform penetration is difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The peripheral portion makes preliminary contact with the skin surface before force is applied for microneedle insertion. This preliminary action establishes a stable foundation that distributes the applied force evenly across the array, ensuring that all microneedles penetrate to the same depth without requiring highly precise force control during the delivery process.
Solution Approach 2:
The design changes the mechanical parameters of the array by adding a peripheral support structure with different physical properties than the microneedles. This peripheral portion has higher contact area and different stiffness, allowing it to absorb and distribute applied forces, thereby converting variable force application into uniform microneedle penetration across the array.
Data Source
AI summary
An article 100 having a first side 112 that has a central portion 130 defined by a first edge 134, a microneedle-free peripheral portion 140 that substantially surrounds the central portion, and a plurality of spaced-apart hollow microneedles 160. Each microneedle has a body that includes an outer surface 163; a base segment 166 having a base 162 and a first shape; a tip segment 168 having a tip 164 and a second shape, wherein the second shape is distinct from the first shape; a transition plane 167 that delineates the base segment and the tip segment; and a central axis 180. An angle, defined by an intersection of the central axis of at least one microneedle and a shortest line extending from the first edge and through the transition plane of the at least one microneedle, is less than about 50°.