Tim Holden, Owen Mumford Pharmaceutical Services, shares a fresh concept in drug delivery: a safety syringe that also acts as a cartridge for its companion autoinjector.
Owen Mumford Pharmaceutical Services
Safety syringes, used in combination with prefilled syringes, are a well-established option for patient self-administration. They are low cost, easy to use, protect from needlestick injury through needle shielding, and can be designed to minimise waste – i.e. by reducing weight or the number of components.
Most patients – approximately four in five – can safely administer medicine themselves using a safety syringe. However, the remaining fifth need an alternative solution. This group has practical, cognitive and emotional challenges to successful self-administration – such as needle phobia or lack of dexterity. The pharmaceutical manufacturer must therefore offer different drug delivery products across a single therapy – an accepted state of play in the industry.
When designing a new, reusable autoinjector – which would serve patients unable to use the safety syringe – Owen Mumford decided to tackle this conundrum. How could the EcoSafe 1 mL safety syringe be extended to cover the needs of all patients – the able, the phobic and the less dextrous? And how could that be achieved without pushing up costs or generating unsustainable plastic waste and carbon emissions?
A single, inclusive product family
Rather than designing the autoinjector in isolation from the safety syringe (as is typically the case), the R&D team considered how the two might work together. Reusable autoinjectors typically require their own disposable cartridge, manufactured separately. In Owen Mumford’s breakthrough design, the safety syringe also acts as the autoinjector’s cartridge.
For patients who cannot manually inject using the safety syringe, due to fear of needles, for instance, healthcare providers have the option to prescribe the ‘companion’ reusable autoinjector – a wrap-around solution when combined with the safety syringe.
The commercial proposition to healthcare customers is thus simplified. Procurement teams can opt for an integrated product covering the needs of all patients, as opposed to seeking out distinct solutions for different patient groups.
For patients, the transition from the safety syringe to the autoinjector is smoother – with minimal training required. And ultimately, the ability to independently and successfully administer medication keeps the patient out of healthcare clinics or hospitals (where a professional would have to administer each dose) or eliminates the need for a home visit by a nurse.
From a manufacturing perspective, engineering, product development and combination product assembly/filling are made far more efficient through this ‘single product family’ concept. The filling line no longer needs variations for sensitive patients and production economies of scale therefore come into play.
The extended EcoSafe 1ml safety syringe platform achieves a key objective: encouraging adherence through inclusive design, serving the able, the non-dextrous and the phobic alike. However, the design team had also set high sustainability targets for the autoinjector.
Setting an industry benchmark
While “patient and user safety continue to be the North Star”, the medtech industry has a role to play in decarbonising healthcare. The sector has inherent challenges on this front, not least the responsibility of “simultaneously improving sustainability, patient safety, and product efficiency performances”.
Nonetheless, the Owen Mumford team set itself the challenge of radically reducing the carbon footprint per injection, compared to other available reusable autoinjectors with published data on environmental impact.
An important initial point is that patient self-administration in itself helps to drive down impact. Administration by a healthcare professional typically introduces avoidable activities, such as road transport. The resulting footprint is so great that it makes CO2 emission comparisons between drug delivery devices pale into relative insignificance.
Usage is a further important consideration. How can footprint be assessed when administration frequency varies from drug to drug? While insulin is administered daily, drugs treating rheumatoid arthritis or Crohn’s disease may be prescribed for weekly or fortnightly administration.
Though the EcoSafe reusable autoinjector was tested to last for over 1,000 uses, device usage lifespan might be anywhere between 3 and 5 years; such frequent dosage would therefore only cover certain therapies.
As a result, the independent Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) commissioned by Owen Mumford calculated footprint per injection, a reliable unit that can be multiplied according to frequency of use, and that provides a basis for comparison with similar products. The peer-reviewed ISO LCA assessed the following: The injecting of a single dose of pharmaceutical using a 1mL EcoSafe safety syringe with minimum and maximum fill volumes of 0.1mL, with an EcoSafe reusable autoinjector.
The LCA concluded that carbon footprint per injection (of the reusable autoinjector with the disposable safety syringe) is under 0.1kg CO2e (only 0.064 kg CO2e per injection). When compared with similar products on the market, it is clear that this marks a new milestone in absolute carbon footprint reduction. Additionally, other reusable autoinjectors do not deploy a safety syringe as a cartridge – a concept that streamlines manufacturing, as described in the previous section.
As the number of uses increases, so does the reduction in carbon footprint. However, even if the device is used just 100 times, footprint per injection does not exceed 0.1kg CO2e.
Meeting elevated expectations for drug delivery devices
In today’s pharmaceutical sector, expectations from drug delivery device makers are high: ever more simplified manufacturing, facilitation of smooth regulatory approval, minimised environmental impact, training support, among other factors. With the new reusable autoinjector, Owen Mumford set out to achieve as many goals as possible in one device, demonstrating that in this highly regulated industry, setting new standards in sustainable design without compromising patient needs remains achievable.
The reusable, mechanical, companion autoinjector for the EcoSafe 1mL safety syringe offers a calmer, more confident injection experience, ideal for sensitive patient populations. At the same time, cost per dose is lower than single use autoinjectors, making it highly economical for frequently dosed therapies. Waste and carbon emissions are only marginally more than those of a safety syringe on its own, so that the device contributes positively to sustainability goals for healthcare provider and pharmaceuticals company alike.