CrossJect single-use needle-free injection system for subQ administration, manufactured by CrossJect SA, a French company, has been awarded this year’s Medical Design Excellence Award (general hospital devices and therapeutic products category).
The award-winning technology is explained by the company:
Crossject is using a novel technology to create the required pressure for the injection. Absolute control must be maintained over the level of pressure to ensure the medicine penetrates skin tissue and is correctly distributed.
Traditional systems use compressed gas or a spring device to create the pressure that triggers the injection. This type of mechanism requires a ramming action to increase the force of the jet while injecting, and has a number of disadvantages. It can cause pain, since the action causes tiny shockwaves, and this causes stress to the tissue, the medicine and the different parts of the injector.
The Crossject injection uses a novel gas generator system. The gas is produced at the moment the injection is made, by activation of energetic materials. Within a few milliseconds, the process sparks gas production with a pre-determined pressure profile…
The Crossject system is made up of three separate modules:
– The first module (the drug container) encases the medicine. It comprises a glass tube (Type I borosilicate), capped at both ends by elastomer corks. The tube and its elastomer caps are similar to those found on traditional syringes and currently marketed by the pharmaceutical industry.
– The injector’s nozzle is manufactured with polycarbonate plastic and can contain one or more orifices, which can range in size from 100 to 300 microns. The number, size and shape of the orifices can be adapted according to the quantity and viscosity of the product to be injected.
The adaptability of the nozzle means stress caused to the tissue and to the medicine itself during the injection is limited. The nozzle adapts itself perfectly to whichever product is being injected. The seal between the nozzle and the glass tube ensures the system remains watertight.
– The gas generator is initiated by the impact of a spring on the energetic materials. The spring itself is triggered automatically by pressure from the nozzle on the skin.
To learn more about the system, go here…
Video of the system…
Medical Design Excellence Award winners…