Drug Delivery Devices: 5 Trends and Expectations

As a medical device development consultancy, we’re constantly working in the future. The devices that we’re working on often have 3-5 year development timeframes (that’s without the formulation and R&D timeframes included!).

As we’re working for and in constant communication with pharmaceutical clients, we get a glimpse of their vision for the future as well as their objectives to help people live healthier lives through use of novel drugs and drug delivery systems. Senior Design Development Engineer, Will, provides insight into some of the expected trends for drug delivery devices, and why we should be excited for what’s to come in 2023 and beyond.

Drug Delivery:

High volume and high viscosity performance of injection systems are becoming increasingly important due to biologics and their higher molecular weights. This increased viscosity requires drug delivery systems to be capable of much higher pressures. Drug encapsulation is a strategy pharma companies are employing whereby they can tailor the timed release of a drug before it reaches the targeted site, via hydrogel matrices or polymeric nanostructures. Other strategies on the device are novel drive mechanisms such as electromechanical, chemical, compressed gas, high spring force, etc. Some of these technologies improve the aesthetics, making a device more compact and discrete however, can put incredibly high loads on device structures, or introduce new mechanical risks.

Aesthetics:

Industrial design in medical device development is increasingly important, especially as medical devices are more readily available and used more frequently than ever. There are two trends and polar opposite design strategies that we can employ with aesthetics. The first is designing a medical device to be as small and discrete as possible, this is sometimes a challenging endeavour given the complexity of the device’s mechanics, however, can pay dividends in reducing material use and increasing shipping loads. The second option is to be loud and proud with your design. This strategy can introduce new opportunities to companies with the likes of accessorisation of medical devices, can promote the awareness of a particular medical requirement and may result in users being more confident and open about their medical devices. The market desire for customisable devices is evident for example, from the growing Etsy marketplace for inhaler covers.

Sustainability:

The Sustainable Development Goals set out by the UN are ambitious yet positively focused targets. They have forced companies to rethink their medical device development strategies and have in a lot of circumstances, improved their devices. Trends that we’ve identified relating to these SDG’s are clever use of mono material devices where possible, reduced amount of material being used, increased external company partnerships for upstream/downstream innovation, better understanding of waste management, the potential for modularity between reusable and disposable elements, providing users and medical professionals with easy to digest environmental impact documents to assist with procurement and informed user decision making regarding sustainable attributes. Find out more about Haughton Design’s sustainability service here.

Packaging:

There is an interesting emerging trend regarding packaging being multifunctional and also aesthetically pleasing. Questions designers are asking themselves include, how might we use the packaging as a tool for improved drug delivery and, how might we reuse the packaging?

From the complete development of  autoinjectors to optimising specific inhalation device mechanisms, here at Haughton Design, we have worked on a wide variety of drug delivery device projects for pharmaceutical companies globally. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions or would like to discuss a new medical device development project.