Success Highlights:
While global health experts worry about fast-spreading viruses in humans and animals, national security officials worry about responding to bio-terror attacks. Both groups are looking ahead to a new generation of needle-free “jet” injectors as the key to rapid mass immunizations.
Advanced injection technology also happens to be the focus of a small company dedicated to human and animal health, bio-security, as well as food and worker safety. Thanks to an IPP project, Felton International of Lenexa, Kansas is working to ensure that new injection systems are fast, safe, and painless as possible.
In the late 1990s, the company was searching for advances in the needle-free technology arena. Felton executives discovered a treasure trove of untapped engineering talent and needle-free design concepts when their internet search led them to the Chemical Automatics Design Bureau (CADB) in Voronezh, Russia, home to a nuclear weapons missile delivery systems production facility.
Since 1965, CADB scientists and engineers had worked on the design of special purpose medical instruments, including 18 needle-free models. They had developed an ingenious disposable cap for needle-free injectors that prevents pathogen backflow. After each injection, the cap pops off and another is easily fitted onto the nozzle. Equipped with these safe needle-free injectors, medical personnel could potentially administer hundreds of injections per hour without spreading blood-borne pathogens from one person to the next.
Through an IPP project with the NNSA Kansas City Plant, Felton and their new partners in Voronozh went to work. Their considerable investment of time and resources paid off with a critical advancement to the original Russian design: a self-disabling, single-use protector cap that captures any blood and fluids that may escape during injection, virtually eliminating the risk of passing along a needle-borne disease.
“Many of our fundamental designs came from Russia, and they brought to the technology a high degree of durability,” says Frank Kruse, a Felton International vice president. Today, the cap is produced in Russia and shipped to Kansas, where the injectors are manufactured for immediate sale to the animal health market.
Felton International holds seven patents for human and animal devices, one of which, the Pulse- 200, covers the first commercially proven needle-free injection system for pig farmers. The company is also developing devices for the dairy and beef cattle markets.
The company is now preparing to introduce the technology for human health applications, with plans to address the needs of community health organizations conducting mass disease eradication campaigns or combating major epidemic outbreaks, as well as meeting national security needs in biological warfare responses functions.
Seen as “the key to the whole future on the human side” by one Felton International leader, the successful development of the protective cap allowed 510(k) clearance from the Food and Drug Administration for a needle-free jet injector for human health use. Clinical trials are the next step.
Needle-free technology will undoubtedly be an important tool in stemming the growing tide of infectious diseases. Felton International and its partners in Voronozh are making a major contribution to cutting-edge efforts to protect health and save lives.
Felton International: www.feltonint.com