Drug delivery devices having separable microneedles and methods
AssigneeGeorgia Tech Research Corporation
InventorsDevin V. McALLISTER, Mark R. PRAUSNITZ, Sebastien HENRY
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Drug delivery devices and methods are provided for delivering one or more drugs into a biological tissue. The devices include microneedles that may be separable from the drug delivery devices, control drug release rate and/or direction, or a combination thereof. When the microneedles are separable, a force applied to the drug delivery devices may be effective to penetrate a biological tissue with the microneedles and then to separate the microneedles from the drug delivery devices. The drug delivery devices may be capable of achieving discrete periods of drug release. Methods for delivery drug with microneedles also are provided.
Claims26
A drug delivery device for administering a drug into a biological tissue, the device comprising:
- an array of microneedles which comprise a drug and which extend from a base;
- and
- a system configured to trigger, after the microneedles are inserted at least partially into a biological tissue, a change in rate of release of the drug from the microneedles and into the biological tissue.
A drug delivery device comprising:
- a substrate having a microneedle side and an opposing back side;
- an array of microneedles extending from the microneedle side of the substrate, wherein the microneedles comprise a drug;
- a supporting layer arranged on the opposing back side of the substrate;
- and
- a barrier configured to permit (i) discrete periods of drug release following insertion into the biological tissue, (ii) control of the region of the microneedles from which the drug is released, or (iii) a combination thereof.
A drug delivery device comprising:
- a substrate having a microneedle side and an opposing back side;
- and
- an array of microneedles extending from the microneedle side of the substrate,
- wherein the microneedles are formed by a molding processing which comprises at least two castings, whereby the microneedles comprise (i) a tip portion comprising a first material which comprises a drug, and (ii) a proximal end portion comprising a second material, wherein the first and second materials have an interface configured to effect separation of the tip portion from the proximal end portion following insertion of the array of microneedles into a biological tissue.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.