Modelling Dissolving Microneedles Mediated Drug Delivery for COVID-19 Treatment

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in dissolvable microneedles (DMNs) due to their ability to deliver drugs in a painless and non-invasive way. Since the emergence of COVID-19, existing antiviral medications such as Remdesivir have been repurposed to aid patients in their recovery. DMNs are an attractive alternative to hypodermic needles for the treatment of COVID-19 as they produce non-sharp waste and allow social distancing to be maintained via self-administration of the drug. This chapter uses a series of conservation equations, coupled with a pharmacokinetic model, to model the transdermal Remdesivir delivery. The obtained results agree well with published experimental data for similar systems. The developed model allows key parameters such as needle length and centre-to-centre spacing between DMNs to be optimised in a faster and more cost-effective way than by running laboratory experiments.