Micromolding technology is widely used for the fabrication of polymer microneedles for transdermal and intradermal drug delivery applications. Geometric features of microneedles in molding are solely determined by geometry of the master mold template. Fabrication of master mold template usually involves costly and cumbersome technologies due to small feature sizes typical of microneedles. In this research, a novel molding platform is designed that is fabricated using low‐cost and simple techniques with flexibility of producing large number of microneedle geometries. The proposed molding platform eliminates need for developing multiple mold templates for fabrication of various geometries of polymer microneedles. Utility of this molding platform is demonstrated in polylactic acid‐based solid thermoplastic microneedles and polyacrylic acid‐based dissolvable microneedles with various aspect ratio settings. Various microneedles fabricated at heights differing with resolution of as low as 100 µm are successfully achieved using specified settings in the molding platform. The suitability of fabricated microneedles for drug delivery applications is evaluated by in vitro and in vivo testing.
Front Cover: In article number 2000072, Kedar Badnikar, Suman Pahal, and co‐workers demonstrate a novel reconfigurable molding platform where polymeric microneedles with different geometric parameters can be fabricated with minimal setup requirements. The working of this novel molding platfom with variable aspect ratio capabilities is demonstrated in the cover image. Controlled rotary movement of the central adjustment bolt with respect to 50 μm per division graduations on circular a scale helps in precise adjustment. Successive rotary movements of 45° results in microneedle height resolution of 100 μm. Any other resolution is possible depending on the pitch of the adjustment bolt and angular pitch on the circular scale. This concept can be scaled up for microneedle production from the μm to the mm range in a simple and controllable way, impacting the translation of microneedle‐based applications from laboratory to market.
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