Revolutionary Autoinjector Pushes the Limits of High-Viscosity Drug Delivery


Oval Medical Technologies Ltd recently announced that a variety of 1100 cPs solutions (the thickness of motor oil) have been successfully delivered through a 25-G thin wall needle, in less than 7 seconds, using their revolutionary autoinjector.

Oval is a cutting-edge autoinjector company based in Cambridge UK. Their autoinjector technology solves currently unsolvable problems in the industry for drug containment and for the end user. Oval is highly focused and agile, and it is therefore not surprising that they are proving to be a global success and are continuously growing their team.
The automatic delivery of high-viscosity drugs is an important milestone for injection delivery, as there is currently no known automatic injection device, with a needle, on the market that can deliver these viscosities.

Viscosity has been a huge problem for many biopharmaceutical formulators as many biologics are very viscous. There has been no effective way of delivering high viscosity drugs through a prefilled syringe, without extreme pain to the patient (due a large needle bore) and physical discomfort, to the caregiver, when administering the injection (due to high injection forces). Not only does this mean that these wonder drugs (often coined magic bullets) can be administered through the Oval device, but they can be administered by the patient in the comfort of their own home.

Oval has wide experimental expertise in the design and testing of primary drug containers, for high-viscosity drugs, in their specifically designed laboratories. Testing of pharmaceutical companies’ drugs, to see if they can be delivered in an Oval device, is proving to be a popular service for biopharmaceutical companies. Oval also has a new technology that should enable much higher viscosities (100,000 cPs) to be administered subcutaneously.

Oval Medical Technologies, based on the Cambridge Science Park, was founded by Matthew Young, and is currently developing a novel autoinjector that is much smaller, easier, and safer to use than any other device currently available. Amongst its many benefits, this will allow pharmaceutical partners to utilize Oval’s technology to deliver sensitive biological drugs that would not otherwise be able to be delivered in injectable devices and patients to have a device that is easily useable. Oval is already working with a number of pharmaceutical companies to customize devices for specific therapeutic areas. For more information, visit www.ovalmedical.com.