Improving the reach of vaccines to low-resource regions, with a needle-free vaccine delivery device and long-term thermostabilization

X Chen, GJP Fernando, ML Crichton, C Flaim… - Journal of controlled …, 2011 - Elsevier
X Chen, GJP Fernando, ML Crichton, C Flaim, SR Yukiko, EJ Fairmaid, HJ Corbett…
Journal of controlled release, 2011Elsevier
Dry-coated microprojections can deliver vaccine to abundant antigen-presenting cells in the
skin and induce efficient immune responses and the dry-coated vaccines are expected to be
thermostable at elevated temperatures. In this paper, we show that we have dramatically
improved our previously reported gas-jet drying coating method and greatly increased the
delivery efficiency of coating from patch to skin to from 6.5% to 32.5%, by both varying the
coating parameters and removing the patch edge. Combined with our previous dose sparing …
Dry-coated microprojections can deliver vaccine to abundant antigen-presenting cells in the skin and induce efficient immune responses and the dry-coated vaccines are expected to be thermostable at elevated temperatures. In this paper, we show that we have dramatically improved our previously reported gas-jet drying coating method and greatly increased the delivery efficiency of coating from patch to skin to from 6.5% to 32.5%, by both varying the coating parameters and removing the patch edge. Combined with our previous dose sparing report of influenza vaccine delivery in a mouse model, the results show that we now achieve equivalent protective immune responses as intramuscular injection (with the needle and syringe), but with only 1/30th of the actual dose. We also show that influenza vaccine coated microprojection patches are stable for at least 6months at 23°C, inducing comparable immunogenicity with freshly coated patches. The dry-coated microprojection patches thus have key and unique attributes in ultimately meeting the medical need in certain low-resource regions with low vaccine affordability and difficulty in maintaining “cold-chain” for vaccine storage and transport.
Elsevier