Biomanufacturing of dissolvable microneedle arrays for transdermal and intradermal delivery of biopharmaceuticals

Principal investigator: Burak Ozdoganlar

University: Carnegie Mellon University

Industry partners: SkinJect, Inc.

The goal of this project is to advance biomanufacturing and biomaterials science and technology to enable accurate and predictable fabrication of MNAs for safe, precise, reproducible, and cost-effective transdermal and intradermal delivery of biopharmaceuticals. Despite the fact that biopharmaceuticals are seen as the future of medicine, their clinical deployment has been limited by the lack of drug-delivery technologies that can enable safe, precise, convenient, reproducible, low cost, and effective delivery of biopharmaceuticals to the patients. To this end, biodissolvable microneedle arrays (MNAs) offer one of the most promising strategies towards enhanced administration of biopharmaceuticals to the patients. SkinJect, Inc., of Pittsburgh is partnered with Carnegie Mellon University to conduct fundamental and applied research to enable accurate and reproducible manufacturing of biodissolvable MNAs for therapeutically-effective and economically-feasible delivery of biopharmaceuticals, and to explore the interrelationship between MNA manufacturing process conditions and the embedded biopharmaceuticals. The project will produce critical results that will demonstrate the applicability of dissolving microneedle array manufacturing technology to biopharmaceuticals, and identify favorable process and materials for manufacturing of MNAs for biologics delivery.