Biolistic drug delivery is a novel method for the intradermal needle-free injection of a widearray of drugs and vaccines. These devices project microparticles, containing a drug orvaccine, onto the skin at speed up to 500 m/s. To achieve the optimal therapeutic orprophylactic effect, the particles need to be delivered to specific skin layers. In order toevaluate the critical parameters and understand their influence on the penetration depth, ananalytical model has been developed. The model is based on the real time tracking of theposition of a ball shot into ballistic gelatin and Perma-Gel using a high-speed camera. Thismacro-scale model is then analyzed in a micro-scale perspective and compared to the resultsobserved with the biolistic needle-free injector. Finally, based on the model, a method tocharacterize the viscosity and the ultimate strength of gels at intermediate strain rate impactis proposed.
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