Long lasting female contraceptives typically require trained professionals to perform injections and to implant devices, something that’s not always available in low-resource settings. Researchers at Georgia Tech and University of Michigan have created a microneedle patch that can deliver a long lasting contraceptive by simply being pressed against the skin. It has already been successfully tested on lab rats, showing that the blood levels of the hormone delivered via the patch increased to appropriate levels. The technology is similar to the flu vaccine patch that was also developed at Georgia Tech.
“There is a lot of interest in providing more options for long-acting contraceptives,” in a statement said Mark Prausnitz, the paper’s corresponding author. “Our goal is for women to be able to self-administer long-acting contraceptives with the microneedle patch that would be applied to the skin for five seconds just once a month.”
The patch has biodegradable needles that break off inside the skin once the user presses down on it with a finger. Air bubbles at the base of the needles allow them to fracture precisely so that the whole of the needles ends up within the skin. The needles are made of a polymer infused with levonorgestrel, a commonly used contraceptive. As the polymer breaks down inside the skin, it releases the levonorgestrel in small doses over a period of weeks.
Future work is still required before this technology is tried on humans, but the researchers believe that their microneedle patch technology will be able to deliver enough contraceptive to last for up to six months.
Flashback: Self-Administered Microneedle Patch to Make Flu Vaccine More Accessible…
Study in Nature Biomedical Engineering: Rapidly separable microneedle patch for the sustained release of a contraceptive…
Via: Georgia Tech…
