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To: Wharf Rat who wrote (57933)	10/1/2004 11:11:46 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

This won't hurt a bit By MATTHEW KALMAN From Tuesday's Globe and Mail Jerusalem — An Israeli scientist has invented a device that could put an end to injections and the widespread fear of needles. Among those expected to benefit eventually are millions of diabetics and children needing shots for immunization or anesthetics. The SonoPrep is a hand-held ultrasound device that painlessly opens microscopic pores in a small area of the skin, allowing medication to pass into the bloodstream. It was invented over a 20-year period by Joseph Kost, a 54-year-old professor of chemical engineering at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel, together with Prof. Robert Langer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "We are now able to focus on a whole series of new applications that replace needles with ultrasound technology," Prof. Kost said in an interview. "It's very exciting." The SonoPrep works by applying ultrasound waves to a small area of skin, about one square centimetre, for about 15 seconds. The ultrasound disrupts a protective membrane under the skin, allowing fluids to flow in or out. The openings allow larger molecules, including those of many drugs, to pass through quickly. The skin returns to normal in 12 to 24 hours. "Everybody is looking for a solution to the problem of needles and painful injections," Prof. Kost said, adding that the device would be particularly helpful for children needing catheters or intravenous needles. The device has recently been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use with lidocaine, an anesthetic used to prepare patients for the insertion of catheters and intravenous needles. Lidocaine is usually delivered through an injection and requires about an hour to take effect. Delivery of a drug through the skin after a 15-second treatment using the SonoPrep takes about five minutes and is painless. SonoPrep, manufactured by Sontra Medical Corp. in Massachusetts, will go on sale in the United States this month; the device costs $2,000 (U.S.). "We also have plans to introduce it in Canada," Sontra spokesman Sean Moran said, adding that the company will first concentrate on the U.S. market before seeking Health Canada approval to sell SonoPrep as a medical device in this country. Other companies have also been working on ways to deliver drugs without needles — although their technologies are different. For instance, Medi-Ject Corp. of Minneapolis has developed a system that shoots liquid droplets of a drug through the skin and into tissue or muscle. Powderject Pharmaceuticals of Oxford, England, has a needle-free injector that uses a helium-gas jet to send finely powdered pharmaceuticals through the skin. And, now, Prof. Kost is using ultrasound to do the trick. Prof. Kost was born in Poland and immigrated to Israel when he was 10 years old. His career in biomedical research has been spent investigating the uses of ultrasound and methods of drug-delivery. Ben-Gurion University, in southern Israel, is the youngest of the country's six universities and has a reputation for new approaches and ground-breaking scientific research. Prof. Kost hopes the approval of SonoPrep's use for lidocaine will be the first step toward using it to deliver a wide range of drugs and medications, including insulin for diabetics and immunizations for children. "Instead of a needle, patients will simply place a patch containing the drug . . . over the treated area and it will be delivered painlessly by being diffused through the skin." Prof. Kost said similar devices are being developed using electrical currents to disrupt the skin membrane, but he was unaware of any using ultrasound. He stumbled across the idea of using ultrasound during research at MIT 20 years ago. There he was part of a team investigating the use of magnets inserted under the skin to trigger slow-release insulin packs for diabetics. Those packs were made of polymers and Prof. Kost began researching whether ultrasound waves would affect the permeability of the polymers. "Then I began to wonder whether we could use ultrasound waves directly to affect the permeability of the skin itself. Twenty years later, here we are," he said. Special to The Globe and Mail © 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved. globetechnology.com