Taking the needle out of injections

 

Consigning the needle to the sharps bin

Making the days of painful injections a thing of the past was the challenge posed to Innomech by a pharmaceutical company.

 

needleless injection

The engineering challenges brought about by the invention of the needleless injection have been met by our engineers, who were commissioned to design and build a machine which can produce a very precise hole in five million injection capsules every year to stringent pharmaceutical industry standards.

 

high speed and pressure

The key to needleless injection is to deliver drugs at high speed and pressure through a very small hole so that they penetrate the skin. The best material to use in these systems is glass, due to its high strength.

 

The problem

 

right sized hole

Our engineers were consulted when the manufacturer discovered that moulding glass in order to produce capsules with exactly the right sized hole was proving difficult; conventional moulding techniques were wearing out the tools involved in just a matter of hours.

 

laser was much more efficient

The client had already carried out its own research, discovering that creating the hole with a laser was much more efficient.

We were commissioned to create a machine that could bring the needleless injection system into production.

 

Our solution

 

health and safety

Our engineers visited the client’s premises to assess the environment in which the machinery would be used. This highlighted problems that had not previously been considered such as the health and safety implications of using an expensive and potentially highly dangerous laser. Also, blasting a hole in glass in this manner produces debris that must be safely removed from the machine immediately.

 

air extraction and filter system

Working closely with the client, we identified answers to these problems, including the incorporation of a custom-designed air extraction and filter system so that glass dust is removed quickly and efficiently.

 

total traceability

Also, in order to meet the strict procedures required by the pharmaceutical industry, it was essential that there was total traceability of each capsule produced. We provided an automated solution utilising computerised tracking and monitoring technology and specifically designed delivery systems to ensure this was accomplished effectively.