Wearable microneedle-based devices for therapeutic drug monitoring (Therasen).

Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) has the potential to improve patient outcomes and dramatically reduce healthcare burden. Still, wearable devices have yet to break through the clinical application of TDM. Today, current TDM methods rely on embedded sensors in catheters or venous blood extraction which is analysed in centralised laboratories. Therefore, there is an unmet need to provide non-invasive and real-time monitoring of therapeutic drugs to address individualized doseresponse characteristics of drugs. This necessity will be addressed by Therasen which aims to contribute with innovative closed-loop sensing and delivery microneedle (MN)-based devices toward a patient-specific therapy. Hence, MN electrochemical drug devices are introduced here as a cutting edge technology to enhance patient compliance and yield optimal therapies. Therasen tackles: (i) affordable and scalable microfabrication methods of MN patches, (ii) functionalisation of MN electrodes with engineered nanomaterials and polymers for monitoring therapeutic levels of methotrexate and esketamine in the interstitial fluid of skin, (iii) development of MN drug delivery systems; and importantly (iv) validation methods of the closedloop MN-device (integration of electrochemical sensor and drug delivery system).

Keywords:NANOMATERIALS, ELECTROCHEMICAL SENSORS

Disciplines:Sensors, biosensors and smart sensors not elsewhere classified