Oval Medical Receives Funding to Progress Container for Autoinjector Techgnology


Oval Medical Technologies Limited recently announced it has received a Smart funding award from the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board, of £228,256 for a project that will progress the development of the manufacturing process for their innovative drug container for their autoinjector technology.

The Technology Strategy Board Smart funding award provides funding for innovation projects in high-growth potential SMEs focusing on science, engineering, and technology research and development projects.

Oval’s autoinjector technology currently uses an innovative drug container closure system consisting of a cyclic olefin vial with a polyethylene cup seal and aluminium foil. The process of foiling plastic containers is widely used across a variety of industries, one being ophthalmology with contact lens packaging. However, this process has not previously been used in an aseptic parenteral drug filling environment. To date, pharmaceutical companies have manufactured autoinjectors using glass syringes from the 1950s which have been known to be unreliable and can be incompatible with modern biological drugs. Oval’s novel container closure system has been developed to overcome such deficiencies, and studies have shown a very high level of patient preference for Oval autoinjectors. This award provides funding toward the development of prototype foiling equipment that will form the basis of a commercial system, demonstrating the viability of this innovative technology.

“I am delighted that Oval has been selected to receive this award from Technology Strategy Board,” said CEO of Oval, Barbara Lead. “This additional investment will allow Oval to accelerate the commercialization of our autoinjectors.”

Oval Medical Technologies is a medical device company developing revolutionary autoinjector technology. Oval’s unique approach allows for devices that are smaller, easier, and safer to use than any other device currently available. Pharmaceutical partners can utilize Oval’s technology to deliver viscous formulations and sensitive biological drugs that would otherwise not be possible to deliver in current marketed injectable devices. Oval can tailor the technology for specific patient populations providing autoinjectors that are best for patients. For more information, visit www.ovalmedical.com