Design of a Vaccine-specific Autoinjector Device to provide a long-term pandemic solution for the UK

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The UK Healthcare system faces an enormous challenge to facilitate the administration of a population-wide immunisation programme against COVID-19\. The widespread nature of the process of vaccination has meant that, until now, there has never been a pharmaco-economic justification that could bear the additional costs of vaccination using a self-administration device compared to a simple vial and needle syringe approach. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic however, has brought about significant changes to our ways of working and social interaction that has impacted upon the way in which healthcare needs to be administered. The availability of a vaccine that could be injected by an individual using a custom-designed autoinjector that has undergone significant human factor evaluation to ensure its safe and easy use, could facilitate a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination programme based from people's own homes. This not only significantly reduces the burden on the health services by removing the need for the practitioners and facilities to administer the injections, it reduces the risk of exposure for the individual, particularly important for the at-risk population and offers additional time-saving cost benefit to the individual by removing the need to schedule a visit to a clinic. Moreover, the device offers itself as a platform for the potential to develop a broader UK vaccination strategy to enable individuals to self-inject other vaccines safely and with convenience. Owen Mumford Ltd (OM) has a long heritage and world class expertise in the design and manufacture of autoinjection devices for various medicines but a device suitable for vaccine delivery is currently unavailable in the UK nor indeed, globally. This proposal would allow OM to finalise the design of a modified vaccine autoinjector (VAI) suitable for safe home use. Our vision is that the VAI could form the basis of a much broader Rapid Immunisation Delivery System (RIDS) in which an individual would (1) self-administer the vaccine, (2) confirm the presence of antibodies by use of a home test kit and (3) using device connectivity a digital confirmation would be created to validate vaccine delivery and antibody test outcome to provide the basis of an electronic certification of immunisation. This capability could be far-reaching and may provide a solution to multiple social and business challenges, such attending events with mass gatherings or air travel, in order to help the UK return to some level of normality.