Prefilled syringe systems

Prefilled syringe systems offer patients and manufacturers major advantages. They are user-friendly, enable exact dosing, and support safe administration.

Prefilled syringe systems...

• Reduce API loss and increase user safety
  Manufacturers typically overfill vials by up to 10 – 20 percent, to ensure that the user can withdraw the prescribed dose. Prefilled syringe systems enable exact filling, saving high-value API and simultaneously helping prevent dosing errors.
• Simplify drug administration
  Prefilled syringes enable quicker, safer dosing by patients and medical professionals. Moreover, devices that offer easy handling, such as auto-injectors, pens and dual-chamber syringes, enable patients or their caregivers to administer treatment by themselves, promoting greater independence.
• Increase compliance
  Noncompliance is often due to basic issues. Users may be frail or have limited transportation to a doctor’s office. Or they may simply be too busy to keep regular appointments. Easy home administration makes it more likely that patients can and will stick to their treatment regimens.
• Safeguard product integrity and prevent counterfeiting
  Tamper-evident closures support the integrity of a product from filling through end-user administration. Anti-counterfeiting systems continuously track every product throughout the production process.
• Prevent needle sticks
  Needle-stick-prevention devices include needle shields and mechanisms that withdraw the needle after the plunger is pushed.
• Minimize risk of microbiological contamination
  With prefilled syringes, manual handling – and thus exposure – is reduced, from filling through patient administration.
• Reduce cross-infections
  Prefilled syringes eliminate the need to re-use needles.

These attributes not only provide distinct advantages, they also help differentiate a product from others on the market that may be more cumbersome to use.

Innovations

Freeze-drying applications and siliconization are areas of advancements in prefilled syringes.

• Dual-chamber syringe systems
  Vetter’s patented dual-chamber syringe systems enable drugs that require lyophilization (freeze-drying) to be safely and easily reconstituted and administered.
• Baked silicone
  Many biologics have a tendency to react with the oily form of silicone, an indispensable gliding agent in many syringe types. By using baked silicone, the amount of free silicone can be markedly reduced. While exposed to hot air, the silicone binds to the glass barrel of the syringe, so the risk of substance to be injected along with the drug is minimized. Reducing the amount of free silicone has several benefits, such as reducing the incidence of particulate formation, which can occur when silicone interacts with protein in the drug.