Microneedle Patch Could Change Landscape for Vaccination

A new microneedle patch under development could revolutionize vaccination for measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.

The patch, which is being developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), measures about a square centimeter.
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Administered with the press of a thumb, the patch is lined with 100 solid, conical microneedles made of polymer, sugar, and vaccine that are a fraction of a millimeter long. These microneedles press into the outer layers of the skin, dissolving within a few minutes and releasing the vaccine.

“We believe that microneedle patches can play a role in mass vaccination campaigns in resource-limited settings by easing the logistics needed to vaccinate people,” says Jessica Joyce, a graduate student who’s been working on this project in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

“The microneedle patches are small in size and are easy to store, distribute, and dispose of, and they can be administered by minimally trained personnel,” she says. “The low cost of the microneedle patch, which is similar to that of filling a vaccine vial, can increase the access of vaccinations to third-world countries.”

The microneedle patch has been designed to meet global health needs and offers many benefits over the traditional method with a needle and syringe:

• It creates no sharps waste and can be disposed of in a way similar to a used bandage.

• It can retain activity at room temperature for at least 12 weeks.

• It doesn’t have the vaccine waste associated with current measles vaccinations because it is packaged in single-dose vials as opposed to 10-dose vials.

Georgia Tech and the CDC’s Global Immunization Division and Division of Viral Diseases recently completed a study in rhesus macaques that showed the new microneedle patch could provide a safe and effective method to deliver measles vaccine. Their findings have cleared the way for developing proposals for human clinical trials, which could begin as early as 2017.

Joyce suggests this delivery method could also be used for many vaccine-preventable diseases. “In our lab, we have created patches with measles, inactivated polio, influenza, human papillomavirus, and BCG vaccines, just to name a few,” she says.

The team is now working to incorporate rubella vaccine into the same microneedle patches so they can vaccinate against measles and rubella simultaneously.

Joyce says the lab is also working on two projects to bring microneedle patches to a larger scale. “We are conducting a phase 1 clinical trial using influenza vaccine here in Atlanta (with Emory University) this year,” she says. “Additionally, we have received funding through the Gates Foundation to bring inactivated polio vaccine microneedle patches to clinical trials in the next 2 years.”

—Colleen Mullarkey

Reference

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (27 April 2015). Microneedle patch for measles vaccination could be a game changer. Available at: www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2015/p0427-microneedle-patch.html.