Researchers have proved that "injection-free" vaccines are an effective tool in the fight against diseases. The team, based in King's College London and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, used dried sugar to create a microneedle array — a tiny disc that only lightly perforates the skin.
Dr. Klavinskis mentions that this new system may prove useful in delivering insulin.
Consider the possibilities! Of course, they will probably have to make the disc out of something other than sugar.
I don't know how much a difference it will make. After all, jet injectors have been around for quite some time. A current version is something like the AdvantaJet, which costs about $700. So I'm not sure how big this will be given the seemingly utter failure of jet injectors. Although I could see how these could do double duty, you could deliver your insulin and then eat the thing to treat a hypo.
When it comes to insulin delivery methods, I'm willing to contemplate any method. The variables to weigh, for me, are performance of the insulin versus PITA to use. For the pump versus MDI, both variables are completely circumstancial but the pump wins out overall for me bcause the insulin just works better, unit for unit, when delivered via pump.
This "injection free" method would have to do better than a pump in some way, shape, or form. If not, the novelty wouldn't be enough.
