Dissolving microneedles (DMNs) are polymeric, microscopic needles that deliver encapsulated drugs in a minimally invasive manner. Currently, DMN arrays are superimposed onto patches that facilitate their insertion into skin. However, due to wide variations in skin elasticity and the amount of hair on the skin, the arrays fabricated on the patch are often not completely inserted and large amount of loaded materials are not delivered. Here, we report “Microlancer”, a novel micropillar based system by which patients can self-administer DMNs and which would also be capable of achieving 97 ± 2% delivery efficiency of the loaded drugs regardless of skin type or the amount of hair on the skin in less than a second.

A self-powered one-touch blood extraction system is fabricated by the integration of a smart polymer-capped hollow microneedle and a pre-vacuum actuator. It is well suited for integration with other microsystems to realize a real-time micro total analysis for point-of-care diagnosis.