Juvic, a microneedle drug developer, said on Monday that it successfully developed a new drug delivery stamp technology called a micro-pillar tunnel stamp (MPTS) that can significantly improve the drug delivery of existing topical drug formulations.
Juvic’s research team, led by Professor Jung Hyung-il of Yonsei University’s Biotechnology Department, investigated ways to reduce pain and effectively deliver drugs through the MPTS applied to the skin.
The stamp consists of a drug cartridge loaded with topical drug formulations and a holder connecting the cartridge to the dissolvable microneedle (DMN) array so that the drug applied to the skin can be more widely dispersed immediately across the stamp for improved drug delivery Accordingly, the functional tunnel and canal of the MPTS enabled the simultaneous application of a DMN array insertion and administration of external topical drugs.
Consequently, the drug delivery efficiency was about 5.04 times higher in the experimental group compared to topical administration in animal studies.
Moreover, the stamping technology can universally be applied to various drugs as they can be easily mounted in the cartridge holder and do not require specific technology to be applied to microneedles. This offers benefits for licensing and mass production in countries and is also expected to greatly improve the efficiency of local formulation drugs such as hair loss drugs, local anesthetics, and ointment in the future.
The study was published in a recent issue of Acta Biomaterialia. Additionally, a patent for the stamp technology developed in this study has already been registered domestically.
Professor Jung said, "The stamp developed through this study compensates for the shortcomings that local formulations such as patches and creams take a long time to express efficacy due to the stratum corneum of the skin which acts as a barrier."
"We will continue to develop new products such as vaccines, hair loss treatments, and hormones applied with stamp technology,” said Juvic CEO Yang Hui-suk. “In particular, discussions on commercialization are expected to proceed quickly as it is effectively applicable to general-purpose drugs."