Creating pain free needles

We are creating pain free needles

The Challenge

Traditional hypodermic needles can be frightening and painful for children and adults alike. With the need to monitor blood glucose levels of patients with diabetes, patient compliance, and therefore outcomes, could suffer.

Micro-needles have been developed across the world, however problems such as the available space for volume of drug as well as getting a sharp enough end to penetrate the skin have arisen.

The Method

Professor Owen Guy and a team of researchers, working with SPTS technologies in Newport, and Cardiff University, are developing small microneedles from silicon.

Silicon is typically used in the semiconductor industry. Equipment etches into silicon wafers in order to reveal the shaft and bevelled tip.

Just 1mm in height with a diameter of 0.2mm, these microneedles have a very sharp bevelled tip and a hollow bore, allowing for a larger volume of drug to be administered with very little to no pain.

The project has benefitted from ESPRC and Innovate UK funding, in collaboration with industry.

The impact

These microneedles can be used as a theranostic device for diseases such as diabetes. If embedded into a wearable patch, the microneedle could diagnose the amount of glucose in the blood and then deliver the appropriate amount of insulin. This could improve the amount of drug given to the patient which would lead to better patient outcomes.
The non-invasive and pain free nature of these microneedles encourage better patient compliance and outcomes.

What our partners say

“KLA Corporation is a leading manufacturer and developer of advanced equipment in the inspection, metrology and process areas for semiconductor wafers, printed circuit boards and flat panel displays. We’ve been around for more than 45 years and have thousands of tools in the field, over 12,000 employees and had over $9 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2022. One of the things we are most proud of is our impact in moving the industry forward.

“Academia is very important for us to understand the next generation requirements. The R&D that happens in an academic environment really gives us a glimpse of a potential future that our customers will be leaning towards 2, 3, 5 years down the road.

“The private-public partnership like Swansea University has had with the SPTS division of KLA Corporation is really leading edge and now we are starting to copy that methodology--based on the close partnership that was first developed many years ago--to other regions where we operate in the U.S., Israel and Asia because we’ve seen how valuable that partnership can be to us and to the University.”

Chet Lenox, KLA Corporation