From 5 to 50 and Beyond – The Fantastic Journey of Large-Volume Sub-Cutaneous Drug Delivery

The sub-cutaneous injection of larger drug volumes is an emerging field of drug application driven by recent advances in formulation development and novel therapeutic areas. In the context of the hospital to homecare shift handheld auto-injectors have been developed to a larger volume design and pumps with dedicated polymer syringes are becoming increasingly important as convenient subcutaneous drug delivery systems.

The interplay of pumps and auto-injectors with the prefilled syringes (PFS) are crucial to ensure a safe, simple and reliable drug administration. In this work, we present how the platform approaches for glass and polymer PFS work together with the devices to provide drug delivery solutions with a fast time to market and superior ease of use. We give examples how the understanding of container-device interactions and usability helps to derisk and simplify the development and delivery of subcutaneous therapies in the large volume space up to 50 ml.