Auto-injec­tors are devices with pre-filled syringes that enable patients to inject them­selves. In recent years, there has been a strong increase in demand for these prod­ucts – a trend that is likely to con­tinue. This is because these devices are not only used for the treat­ment of var­ious autoim­mune dis­eases; cur­rently, var­ious bio­logics are under devel­op­ment that could be used, for example, as injec­tions for the treat­ment of cancer, asthma and migraine. Also, many med­i­cines for rare dis­eases are gen­er­ally injectable.

In order to be able to meet this diver­sity with a high ­degree of flex­i­bility, the Swiss com­pany Ypsomed has devel­oped the auto-injector plat­form Ypso­Mate^®. These devices are com­pat­ible with all common glass or polymer syringes with a filling volume of one or two milliliters.

The plat­form approach sim­pli­fies the market launch of auto-injec­tors while at the same time ­enabling indi­vidual cus­tomiza­tion. The final assembly of smaller series of the Ypso­Mate^® product family can be per­formed on Harro Höfliger’s semi-auto­matic Assembly Lab system which can also be used for pen production.

Batch sizes can be deter­mined indi­vid­u­ally – which is ben­e­fi­cial, for instance, when pro­ducing high-priced devices for the treat­ment of rare dis­eases. If larger batches are desired, the Assembly Lab ensures a safe devel­op­ment of the product. All process para­me­ters can be reli­ably trans­ferred to pro­duc­tion machines with higher outputs.

Down­load this article as PDF file

Photos: Helmar Lünig, Ypsomed, Tom Philippi