Programmable Microfluidic Pump with Skin Penetration Enhancement for Drug Delivery

Our country's safety often falls on the shoulders of soldiers called on to perform their best for extended periods of time, often days at a time. During such situations, the ability to stay awake (or quickly fall asleep) is essential. Properly administered, pharmaceutical agents can play a critical role helping soldiers in these situations. Unfortunately, oral ingestion may result in unwanted drug peaks and valleys or gastrointestinal drug degeneration, while transdermal application is slow and limited to low molecular weight drugs. To provide a solution, Los Gatos Research has developed a massively parallel microfluidic pump capable of providing large flow rates (100 microliters/minute) at low voltages (less than 3 Volts). This unique pump is small, robust, and lightweight without moving parts or inlet/outlet adaptors. Such a pump can be battery-powered and integrated with a microprocessor to provide programmable drug delivery over an extended period of time (up to three days). Furthermore, in conjunction with chemical enhancers and microneedle arrays, our integrated micropump will be able to increase effective skin permeability for pharmacological agents by orders of magnitude. Together, these components will be combined inside a transdermal patch to create a simple, portable, rugged, disposable, and non-intrusive drug delivery vehicle.