Investigation of Plasma Treatment on Micro-Injection Moulded Microneedle for Drug Delivery

Abstract

Plasma technology has been widely used to increase the surface energy of the polymer surfaces for many industrial applications; in particular to increase in wettability. The present work was carried out to investigate how surface modification using plasma treatment modifies the surface energy of micro-injection moulded microneedles and its influence on drug delivery. Microneedles of polyether ether ketone and polycarbonate and have been manufactured using micro-injection moulding and samples from each production batch have been subsequently subjected to a range of plasma treatment. These samples were coated with bovine serum albumin to study the protein adsorption on these treated polymer surfaces. Sample surfaces structures, before and after treatment, were studied using atomic force microscope and surface energies have been obtained using contact angle measurement and calculated using the Owens-Wendt theory. Adsorption performance of bovine serum albumin and release kinetics for each sample set was assessed using a Franz diffusion cell. Results indicate that plasma treatment significantly increases the surface energy and roughness of the microneedles resulting in better adsorption and release of BSA.

Effect of microneedles on transdermal permeation enhancement of amlodipine

“…Compression tests of PM on a steel plate using Bose Electroforce 3100 instrument with a 225 N load cell and Wintest® software (Bose, MN, USA) revealed that the PMs were able to withstand compression forces of up to 8 N [20].…”

“…[19]. In this study, micro-injection moulding was employed for fabrication of the polymeric MN arrays (PM) using PEEK LT-3 (polyether ether ketone) as reported in previous paper [20].…”

Microneedle-assisted transdermal delivery of Zolmitriptan: effect of microneedle geometry, in vitro permeation experiments, scaling analyses and numerical simulations

“…17 . In this study, micro-injection moulding was employed for fabrication of the polymeric MN arrays (PM) using PEEK LT-3 (polyether ether ketone) as reported in Nair et al 18 . The MN mould insert (Fig 2 B) …”

Differences in biocompatibility of microneedles from cyclic olefin polymers with human endothelial and epithelial skin cells

“…A microneedle is a short, sharp, spike‐like structure, generally less than 1 mm in length, and is often provided in arrays that may number anything up to several hundred per square centimeter and that can penetrate the epidermal layer of the skin. Although microneedles were originally fabricated using techniques borrowed from the semiconductor industry, injection molding has emerged as a viable alternative for their manufacture, especially as technical advances have facilitated the accurate reproduction of the microscale features associated with microneedles . Furthermore, injection molding is a low‐cost, high‐throughput process that has traditionally been compliant with medical device regulations, materials and manufacturing procedures.…”

“…Although microneedles were originally fabricated using techniques borrowed from the semiconductor industry, injection molding has emerged as a viable alternative for their manufacture, especially as technical advances have facilitated the accurate reproduction of the microscale features associated with microneedles. 9,10 Furthermore, injection molding is a low-cost, high-throughput process that has traditionally been compliant with medical device regulations, materials and manufacturing procedures.…”