Ex vivo evaluation of a microneedle array device for transdermal application.

A new approach of transdermal drug delivery is the use of microneedles. This promising technique offers the potential to be broadly used for drug administration as it enables the dramatic increase in permeation of medicaments across the stratum corneum. The potential of microneedles has evolved to spawn a plethora of potential transdermal applications. In order to advance the microneedle capabilities and possibly revolutionize advanced drug delivery, this study introduces a novel transdermal electro-modulated hydrogel-microneedle array (EMH-MNA) device composed of a nano-porous, embeddable ceramic microneedle array as well as an optimized EMH for the electro-responsive delivery of indomethacin through the skin. The ex vivo permeation as well as drug release experiments were performed on porcine skin tissue to ascertain the electro-responsive capabilities of the device. In addition, the microbial permeation ability of the microneedles across the viable epidermis in both microneedle-punctured skin as well as hypodermic needle-punctured skin was determined. Ex vivo evaluation of the EMH-MNA device across porcine skin demonstrated that without electro-stimulation, significantly less drug release was obtained (±0.4540mg) as compared to electro-stimulation (±2.93mg).