The new printer is being tested with Pfizer Moderna and Pfizer jabs. However, it will be adapted to meet the specific needs. – Copyright POOL/AFP Christian Charisius
Daniel Lawler
Scientists announced Monday that they had developed the world’s first mobile printer capable of producing thumbnail-sized patches to deliver Covid mRNA vaccines. They hope the tabletop device can help immunize people in remote areas.
While many hurdles remain and the 3D printer is likely years away from becoming available, experts hailed the “exciting” finding.
The device prints two centimetre wide patches, each containing hundreds of tiny needles which administer a vaccine to the skin when pressed.
These “microneedle patches” offer a range of advantages over traditional jabs in the arm, including that they can be self-administered, are relatively painless, could be more palatable to the vaccine-hesitant and can be stored at room temperature for long periods of time.
The popular mRNA Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna need to be refrigerated, which has caused distribution complications — particularly in developing countries that have condemned the unequal distribution of doses during the pandemic.
A study published in Nature Biotechnology found that the new printer had been tested with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. But the international research team behind it hopes to adapt it for any other vaccines needed.
Robert Langer, co-founder of Moderna and one of the study’s authors, told AFP that he hoped the printer could be used for “the next Covid, or whatever crisis occurs”.
Ana Jaklenec, a study author also from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the printer could be sent to areas such as refugee camps or remote villages to “quickly immunise the local population,” in the event of a fresh outbreak of a disease like Ebola.
– Vacuum-sealed –
Covid, as well as a number of other diseases such polio and measles, are being developed into microneedle patches.
The patch has long been a flop because it is a labor-intensive, expensive process that often involves large centrifuge machines.
To shrink that process down, the researchers used a vacuum chamber to suck the printer “ink” into the bottom of their patch moulds, so it reaches the points of the tiny needles.
The vaccine ink consists of lipid nanoparticles that contain mRNA vaccine molecules as well as polymers similar to sugarwater.
The study concluded that once the patches have dried, they can be stored for at least six month at room temperature. The patches even survived a month at a balmy 37 degrees Celsius (99 Fahrenheit).
The study found that mice immunised with a patch had a similar antibody response as those who received a traditional injection.
The printed patch is currently being tested by primates.
– ‘A real breakthrough’? –
The printer is capable of producing 100 patches within 48 hours. But modelling suggested that — with improvements — it could potentially print thousands a day, the researchers said.
“And you can have more than one printer,” Langer added.
Joseph DeSimone, a chemist at Stanford University not involved in the research, said that “this work is particularly exciting as it realises the ability to produce vaccines on demand”.
“With the possibility of scaling up vaccine manufacturing and improved stability at higher temperatures, mobile vaccine printers can facilitate widespread access to RNA vaccines,” said DeSimone, who has invented his own microneedle patches.
Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, said that production and access to vaccines could be “transformed through such a printer”.
“It might become a real breakthrough,” he told AFP, while warning that this depended on approval and mass production, which could take years.
Darrick Carter is a biochemist, and the CEO of US biotech company PAI Life Sciences. He was less hopeful.
He said that the field of microneedle patches had “suffered for 30 years” because no one had yet been able to scale up manufacturing in a cost-effective way.
“Until someone figures out the manufacturing scale-up issues for microneedle patches they will remain niche products,” he told AFP.