Researchers at Australia’s University of Queensland and University of Melbourne have developed a needle-free, pain-free method of vaccine delivery, which they have now made dissolvable, eliminating the potential of needle-stick injury. The researchers say the study, published in the journal Small, confirms that the Nanopatch may offer a safer, cheaper alternative to needle vaccines.

“What we have been able to show for the first time is that the Nanopatch is completely dissolvable,” says Mark Kendall, project leader from the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. “That means zero needles, zero sharps, zero opportunity for contamination and zero chance of needle-stick injury.”

The World Health Organization estimates that 30 percent of vaccinations in Africa are unsafe due to cross contamination caused by needle-stick injury, which Kendall estimates becomes a healthcare burden of about $25 per administration.

The Nanopatch is smaller than a postage stamp and is packed with thousands of tiny projections that are invisible to the human eye. They are dried to include the vaccine together with biocompatible materials that dissolve when moistened.

When the patch is placed against the skin, these projections push through the outer skin layer and deliver the biomolecules to the target cells. The device is strong and stable while dry, but when it is applied to the skin, the projections immediately become wet, dissolving within minutes.

Research published in the journal Plos One in April found that the Nanopatch achieved a protective immune response using an unprecedented one-hundredth of the standard needle and syringe dose, which Kendall says is ten times better than any other delivery method.

Being both painless and needle-free, the Nanopatch offers hope for people who fear needles, as well as improving the vaccination experience for young children.

“When compared to a needle and syringe, a Nanopatch is cheap to produce and it is easy to imagine a situation in which a government might provide vaccinations for a pandemic such as swine flu to be collected from a chemist or sent in the mail,” says Kendall.

Kendall’s team has been working on the Nanopatch for five years and hopes to start clinical trials soon. So far the team has been using an influenza vaccine but Kendall says any vaccine could potentially be delivered via the Nanopatch. The team has also demonstrated success of the Nanopatch using candidate vaccines for West Nile virus and Chukunga virus.