University News for July 30, 2010

A Manitoba-based mass vaccination injector manufacturer is confident research into the use of needle-free injectors will help potential customers decide whether or not to invest in the technology.

Needle-free injectors use a high-speed blast of gas to propel veterinary compounds through the skin, replacing the need for needles.

Researchers with the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences in partnership with AcuShot Inc. are using high-speed photography to track the dispersion of liquids injected into different mediums, including ballistic gels and commercial foams, to assess the technology.

AcuShot regional marketing and technical support manager Mike Agar is confident having an independent third party assessment of the equipment will help encourage uptake of the technology.

Clip-Mike Agar-AcuShot Inc:
Certainly AcuShot will make use of the information for the support of our existing equipment and its capability.

I'm sure the University of Manitoba Biosystems Engineering will use it for future reference in other research that they could do relative to tissue models or further needle-free injection technology testing.

The possibilities are limitless there.

Customers around the world or potential users of the equipment will access the information to help them make decisions about how they would want to proceed and where it would fit.

Specifically economic and science-based organizations, when you're talking the food industry in particular, they don't make decisions just because people say this is good.

They do their research and they require good solid information to be able to make decisions of this type on because when they buy equipment or make a change within their organizations these are massive investments and they need good information to be able to help them make those decisions.

Agar says, because needle-free technology is so new, global uptake is still a fraction of a percent but AcuShot is hoping to change that.

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

*University News is a presentation of the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Agricultural & Food Sciences