Towards the development of automated wearable systems for closed-loop biologic drug delivery

Current wearable drug delivery systems are designed to deliver biopharmaceuticals in their liquid forms. However, many biologics are not stable as a liquid and must be stored in their freeze-dried, or lyophilized, form, which makes them incompatible with current wearable drug delivery systems. Although these drugs can be delivered manually, they require many steps to re-activate the lyophilized drugs, a time-consuming process prone to human error, which can lead to serious complications and even death in time-sensitive situations, such as acute hypoglycemia. Thus, this project investigates the design of a device integrated in wearable drug delivery systems to automatically and quickly administer lyophilized biopharmaceuticals to overcome these limitations. This will pave the way for broadening the set of drugs available for use in such wearable devices, thus decreasing the burden on the healthcare industry while expanding the clinical utility and personalization of wearable devices.

Faculty Supervisor:

Daniel Franklin

Student:

Partner:

Stanford University

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Toronto

Program: