Innovator Patrick AnquetilAge 42Title Chief executive officer of Portal Instruments, a 30-employee company in Cambridge, Mass.Form and functionDesigned for patients to use on themselves, the needle-free injector delivers drugs through the skin using a small piston that the company says is less painful than a conventional hypodermic needle.
UseThe 7-inch, 10-oz. injector comes loaded with a disposable cartridge containing multiple doses (about 1 milliliter each) of a given drug. Patients press the tip of the injector against their thighs or abs and push the button.
DeliveryA piston driven by a computer-controlled electric motor delivers a 150-micron-thick jet of drugs through the patient’s skin in about half a second. It reduces painful pressure after penetrating the skin.
OriginAnquetil co-founded Portal in 2012 with Ian Hunter, the head of MIT’s BioInstrumentation Lab, who helped develop the first prototype.
TreatmentsPortal says it plans to pitch its injector to drugmakers for self-treatment of chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and hemophilia.
FundingPortal has received $36 million from investors including drugmaker Sanofi.
RivalsOther needle-free delivery devices depend on compressed air, springs, or chemical explosions to inject drugs in a sustained blast.
Next StepsDan Luo, a professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell, says that besides appearing safer than a hypodermic needle, the piston injector, with its reduced pain, may make patients less likely to skip doses. Anquetil says clinical trials are under way and that the injector’s design should be final, and smaller, next year. He’s aiming for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in 2019 and hasn’t settled on a price.
To contact the author of this story: Michael Belfiore in at michael@michaelbelfiore.com.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jeff Muskus at jmuskus@bloomberg.net.
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