Microneedles for Contraception 3
Microneedles for Contraception 3
Jacob Coffey, Grace Ingalls, Robert Langer, Giovanni Traverso Empowering women worldwide: a long acting, self-administrable contraceptive patch for women with infrequent access to healthcare
MIT Department of Chemical Engineering, Koch Institute at MIT
This single dose skin patch is applied once to achieve long acting (~ 6 month) and discrete (visibly undetectable) contraception. The tips of the microneedles, visualized here using a pink dye, detach from the remaining patch and lodge with minimal invasiveness beneath the user’s skin. They contain a biodegradable slow release contraceptive offering up to 6 months duration. This empowers women particularly in low resource settings, who have infrequent access to healthcare and require both self-administrable and culturally sensitive (e.g. discrete) contraceptive options.
