Marc Koska on the developing world and their drug delivery needs

Today, we have another segment from DDP keynote Marc Koska's podcast. He is the inventor of the first non-reusable syringe credited with saving over 10 million lives.

Download the “Importance of Safe Drug Delivery in the Developing World” Podcast here.

Today, Marc answers the question:
What do you see as the next great need in drug delivery devices for the developing world? Obviously, syringes are the most widely used right now because they are really that first delivery system that a drug is adhered to. But moving forward, I don’t know if you’re looking for the next invention, but where do you see the industry going?

Well, I think it’s a really interesting question. There is obviously going to be a need in some sectors of the most developed of the developing world market to start looking at needle protection, to look at different ways of guaranteeing that the drug is being delivered into the right part of the body with better aspiration techniques and things like that. So, I think there are steps forward and we are certainly working on those within our design group, but we are very aware that unless we get through stage one (sorry to be boring and normal), but unless we get through stage one, which is to raise the awareness and bring up the market to a level where they accept safe syringes in the first place, we are going to find it very hard to take it to the next stage (although we’ve got lots in our stable and although we’ve got, we think, a fantastic patent portfolio of great ideas designed specifically for the developing world). Unless we get a platform built with syringes first, it’s going to be very hard to take it to the next level. But, of course, the obvious answer is to get away from the cold chain and to get much more stabilized drugs that are being pre-packaged in syringes and with multivalent-type delivery so that we are delivering a package in one go. And that’s going to be the future, for sure, but we have to get the first thing sorted out before we even move to that second stage.

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