Skin Patch: New Options for Vaccine Delivery

Gaithersburg, MD based Iomai Corp. has just begun testing two types of skin patch vaccines, one to prevent the flu, and the other to prevent travelers’ diarrhea. Tests are being conducted on hundreds of volunteers, with funding and assistance from The National Institutes of Health.

The National Institutes of Health is interested in skin patch research (also called transdermal delivery mechanisms) as skin patch vaccines may replace some existing vaccine technologies, and may be used to provide an extra boost to others when needed (such as in the case of a super-bug or pandemic).

If the skin patch works for one disease, it is believed that it could be adjusted to deliver multiple kinds of vaccines. Iomai has funding from the Department of Defense to help develop a patch to prevent anthrax.

Most of today’s vaccines are injected into the muscle, though getting the vaccine just under the skin would be enough. Recent research using small needles to place flu vaccine just inside the skin found that lower doses of the vaccine were needed for full protection. Smaller doses of vaccine, with no loss in protection, could potentially save millions of dollars in healthcare costs.

The Iomai patches work very simply- the top layer of skin is scuffed away, such as with an emery board, and the patch is pasted to this area for several hours. Specialized (Langerhans) cells recognize the presence of foreign invaders and activate the immune system.