Drug delivery: how to replace needles with smart sound waves

Millions of people living with diabetes, obesity and osteoporosis could benefit from the work of European start-up company Medicsen and their ultrasound patch that delivers drugs without needles nor pain.

The initiative highlights successful stories from projects funded by the European Innovation Council (EIC). Featured in DeepSync, part of the EIC Communities project, these stories offer a unique opportunity to connect with fellow members and innovators. By showcasing the challenges and successes of each project's journey, these stories present key moments and insights that can raise visibility, foster deeper understanding, and encourage collective knowledge exchange across communities.

In a Madrid hospital a decade ago a teenage girl refused her insulin shot. She was tired of the painful routine, the endless daily punctures that scored the rhythm of her life.

"I was consulting on a ward when a young girl with diabetes refused to keep injecting because she was sick of using needles. Her friends were laughing at her. She couldn't have a normal life," recalls health tech innovator Eduardo Jorgensen. A medical doctor by training, he watched incredulously as she cried, saying she'd genuinely rather risk her health than live another day tethered to the needles.

"That blew my mind," says Eduardo, and it set him on a course to solve that very problem. Along with two friends who were engineers and another from medical school, they secured EU funding for the Sonophoresis project that developed the Smartpatch: it looks like a sleek arm band but conceals a feat of acoustic microengineering that uses safe ultrasound waves, a concept called sonophoresis, to push large drug molecules like insulin through the skin—no needles required.

"When you hit the skin with the right type of ultrasound, you generate microscopic cavitation bubbles internally that expand and collapse," explains Eduardo. "This temporarily opens up micropore-like structures—tiny pathways in the skin." And the sound is a mechanical wave, so it acts as a pressure generator forcing the drug to go through and into the body, even a large molecule like insulin.

Healing with sound

Europe has the highest burden of type 1 diabetes in the world. An estimated 10% of people living in the region will have diabetes by 2045—more than 40 million people having to dose themselves or be dosed every day. In 2024, nearly $200 billion was spent managing the condition, around a fifth of the worldwide spend, and every year more than 600,000 deaths are attributed to the condition.

Drugs like insulin can manage the condition, but the monotonous and painful nature of self-administering drugs caused physical and psychological problems. Adherence to therapies in patients with Type 2 diabetes is less than 50%—hence the need to take the pain from the process. Other metabolic conditions with significant global footprints like obesity, osteoporosis in an ageing population and certain autoimmune disorders could also benefit from a needle-free approach.

Eduardo now leads Medicsen, a small Spanish medical technology company and a team that wants to make 21st century innovations in pain-free drug delivery a reality. Starting in 2015, the idea wasn't easy to bring to life. For decades, ultrasound-based drug delivery was considered scientifically intriguing but commercially unviable because the devices capable of producing the low frequency ultrasound waves needed for permeabilisation (so molecules could cross through the skin) were too big.

After years of tinkering using relatively small seed funding, the team built a miniature ultrasound generator just 2.5 centimetres across, small enough to fit in a patch. "We've spent a decade finding the exact combination of ultrasound frequencies, intensities, and durations that open the skin safely," says Eduardo. "We started doing in vitro trials with pork skin, and then we escalated them to human skin. It took millions of tests."

By early 2023, after dozens of prototypes and promising animal trials, Medicsen only had enough money to cover a few more weeks. "We approached a thousand investors," Eduardo recalls. "But eight percent said, 'Come back when you've got human data.' Everyone else just said no."

Then the team received a lifeline: an EIC Accelerator grant from the European Innovation Council (EIC) designed for start-ups in need of substantial funding where the risks are too high for private investors, but where the societal pay-off is worth that risk. "We got the news three days before we were going to tell the team they might have to find new jobs," Eduardo says. "We had failed twelve times before with EIC applications, but we learned, we evolved, and on the thirteenth try we got it."

That €2.5 million EIC grant allowed them to push through the final stages of development, complete their Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) trials in pigs, and prepare for first-in-human trials set to begin in late 2025.

A reusable, sustainable, personal solution

About the size of a matchbox, the Sonophoresis Smartpatch has two parts: a reusable electronic core containing the ultrasound generator, battery and circuitry, and a disposable drug reservoir that sticks to the skin. The reusable part lasts up to three years; the disposable section is swapped out depending on the condition and therapy regimen—three days for insulin for example, then one day for osteoporosis treatments.

This dual design combines drug delivery convenience and better sustainability. Medical waste from syringes runs into millions of tonnes annually; a reusable patch dramatically reduces that footprint—the European biomedical waste management market size was worth an estimated $23 billion in 2025.

Medicsen's focus is now on four molecules: 1) insulin for diabetes; 2) teriparatide for osteoporosis; 3) GLP-1 analogues such as Ozempic for obesity and metabolic disorders; and adalimumab (Humira) for autoimmune diseases. Eduardo estimates that together they represent a staggering €160 billion of the global injectable drug market.

In unpublished trials, the patch has successfully delivered insulin and teriparatide through pig skin, achieving comparable absorption rates to traditional injections. "We estimate half the global market of injectable drugs for chronic conditions could eventually be compatible with our system," Eduardo says. "But we're scientists. We want more data. Once we have human results, we can talk about transforming healthcare."

Eduardo's team has grown from four founders to a staff of twenty: a "new generation of ultrasound engineers built from scratch," as he puts it. Between them, they've raised over €10 million in grants and other funding. And the technology has potential beyond diabetes or osteoporosis. If Medicsen's patch succeeds, it could be a leader in an innovative new frontier in non-invasive therapeutics, delivering everything from hormone therapy to vaccines, even personalised monoclonal antibodies.

Considering the focus on personalization and patient autonomy in modern medicine, the Sonophoresis Smartpatch has the potential to humanise chronic care. "Many patients can't self-inject," says Eduardo. "Some have needle phobia, others lack dexterity. A patch you can apply like a plaster could change their lives."

Until then, he remains a doctor who swapped scalpels for circuits, guided by a teenage girl's refusal to suffer another jab. "I think of her often," he says. "She reminds me that empathy is the start of innovation."

Photo credits: BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash

Contacts:

Project coordinator: APRE

Stefania De Santi, desanti@apre.it

Communication Team: Fondazione ICONS

Cesar Giovanni Crisosto—cesar.crisosto@icons.it

Caterina Falcinelli—caterina.falcinelli@icons.it

Project website: https://deepsync.eu
LinkedIn: DEEPSYNC

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