Protheragen-ING specializes in hollow microneedle development and is committed to providing innovative solutions for drug delivery, diagnostics, and other applications. With our state-of-the-art facilities and extensive experience in the field, we aim to revolutionize the way drugs are administered and sampled. Read on to learn more about our services and the benefits of the hollow microneedles we develop and manufacture.

Background

As medical technology continues to evolve, hollow microneedles are becoming increasingly important as an innovative drug delivery tool. They are made using ceramics, metals, silicon, and glass. Each needle has a cavity inside and a hole in the tip to inject a minute amount of drug solution into the skin. Hollow microneedles can be thought of as a scaled-down version of traditional hypodermic needles, with micrometer lengths and diameters.

Fig. 1 Hollow microneedles. (Cárcamo-Martínez A, et al. 2021)

Hollow microneedles offer major advantages over the other four types of microneedles, such as rapid and direct delivery of drugs into the body, eliminating the need for time-consuming, slow infiltration and release processes, and higher drug utilization. Hollow microneedles, in combination with the minimally invasive, painless, and convenient delivery of microneedles, have been used for transdermal delivery of chemicals, insulin, vaccines, lidocaine, and more.

Our Services

Regardless of the size of your project, we offer a comprehensive range of services to meet your hollow microneedle development needs. Our services include but are not limited to:

• Initial concept and design development
• Material selection and optimization
• CAD design and modeling.
• Manufacturing process development.
• Prototyping and characterization testing.
• Mass production and quality control.

Our Preparation Methods

Our team consists of experienced engineers and scientists with extensive expertise in the fields of micro and nanotechnology and biomedicine. We work closely with our customers from requirements analysis through prototyping to final production to ensure that our solutions fully meet their requirements and expectations.

Our typical approach is to fabricate hollow microneedles using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technologies, including photolithography, etching, and laser direct writing.

1.Thin substrate films are formed by chemical or physical vapor deposition or spin coating.

2.A two-dimensional master pattern of the desired material is transferred from the original photomask to the photosensitive film on the substrate by photolithography.

3.Microneedles are made by wet or dry (plasma-based) etching.

However, in some cases, MEMS technology is not able to realize high-precision manufacturing of hollow microneedles with fine structures. Instead of MEMS, additive manufacturing (AM) techniques (3D printing) such as static optical projection lithography (SOPL), stereolithography (SLA), fused deposition molding (FDM), selective laser sintering (SLS), and digital light processing (DLP) are used.

Fig. 2 Schematic diagram of fabrication principle of hollow microneedle patches (HMNPs) via static optical projection lithography. (Li R, et al. 2022)

Benefits of Our Hollow Microneedles

By choosing our hollow micro development services, you will receive the following benefits of hollow microneedles:

• High precision and consistency: Our microneedle manufacturing process is tightly controlled to ensure a high degree of consistency in the size and performance of each microneedle.
• Personalization: We customize our microneedles to meet the needs of our clients, including the selection of size, shape, and material to meet specific application requirements.
• Efficient drug delivery: Hollow microneedles provide higher drug delivery efficiency, reducing dose and treatment time while improving efficacy.
• Comfort and safety: Our microneedles are designed with patient comfort and safety in mind, reducing the risk of pain and complications.

Contact us and let's work together to develop precise, efficient, and safe hollow microneedles that advance medical technology.