{"id":5989,"date":"2025-01-15T14:50:41","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T14:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.springboard.pro\/?p=4976"},"modified":"2026-09-29T08:30:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T08:30:04","slug":"drug-delivery-trends-for-2025","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.sanner-group.com\/insights\/blog\/drug-delivery-trends-for-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Drug Delivery Trends for 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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At the start of 2025, the drug delivery device industry is larger and more innovative than ever. In the \u201cDrug Delivery Trends for 2024<\/a>\u201d article in\u00a0ONdrugDelivery<\/em>\u2019s January 2024 issue one year ago,(1)<\/span>\u00a0we identified five key trends for the past year:<\/p>\n

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  1. The booming market for weight-management drugs<\/li>\n
  2. Closed-loop insulin systems (artificial pancreases)<\/li>\n
  3. Large-volume injection<\/li>\n
  4. Ophthalmic injections<\/li>\n
  5. New development budgets for 2024.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Sales of weight management drugs, led by glucagon-like peptide-1s (GLP-1s) such as Wegovy (semaglutide, Novo Nordisk) and Zepbound (tirzepatide, Eli Lilly), have indeed increased substantially from around US$40 billion (\u00a331.8 billion) in 2023 to around $53 billion in 2024. Growth is expected to continue in the region of 16% to 18% annually.(2)<\/span>\u00a0The $16.5 billion acquisition of\u00a0Catalent<\/a> by Novo Holdings (Dartford, UK) in February 2024 caused shockwaves through the drug delivery industry as fill-finish and injection device manufacturing capacity became saturated.(3)<\/span>\u00a0This trend shows no signs of slowing but will change significantly as semaglutide\u2019s core patents expire in various countries in 2026.<\/p>\n

    Closed-loop insulin systems continue to innovate, with the Omnipod 5 (Insulet, Acton, MA, US) pump able to integrate with the FreeStyle Libre 2 (Abbott Diabetes Care, Chicago, IL, US) or Dexcom G6 (DexCom, San Diego, CA, US) continuous glucose sensors4<\/span>\u00a0and the t:slim X2 (Tandem Diabetes, San Diego, CA, US) integrating with the FreeStyle Libre 2.5.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Meanwhile, new options for large-volume injections continue to emerge, such as 5 mL autoinjectors. Additional ophthalmic injector development demand continues to be high, but the innovative projects in this area remain confidential.<\/p>\n

    Finally, anecdotal evidence suggests that new development budgets increased substantially in 2024. As predicted, many major pharmaceutical and medical device companies emerged from their corrections after the significant investments made in the industry during the covid-19 pandemic, multinational supply chains adjusted to new geopolitical realities and interest rates reduced throughout the year, thus freeing up capital for investment.<\/p>\n

    Trend 1: Emergency combination products<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Many people think of EpiPen from Viatris when emergency medication is mentioned. EpiPen contains adrenaline (epinephrine) to treat anaphylaxis, which can be life threatening. However, some patients and caregivers delay or do not administer treatment in an emergency due to fear of the needle, lack of portability or, for untrained users, fear of giving an injection, among other reasons.(6)<\/span> The first nasal adrenaline for anaphylaxis was approved in Europe in June 2024, and the US in August 2024.(7)<\/span>\u00a0The product is called EURneffy<\/em>\u00a0in Europe and\u00a0neffy<\/em>\u00a0in the US (ARS Pharmaceuticals, San Diego, CA, US). We look forward to other emergency drugs being delivered through new administration routes or using new and improved delivery devices.<\/p>\n

    Regulatory guidance for emergency combination products is evolving. In April 2020, the US FDA released draft guidance on \u201cTechnical Considerations for Demonstrating Reliability of Emergency-Use Injectors Submitted under a BLA, NDA or ANDA\u201d. This draft guidance is being used for developing devices that are injectors or use different routes of administration.<\/p>\n

    The draft guidance contains the \u201c5 Nines\u201d rule, wherein it \u201crecommends that emergency-use injectors include design control specifications for successful injection reliability of 99.999% with a 95% level of confidence.\u201d If taken literally, this would mean that a development program would have to test nearly 300,000 devices with zero failures. Emergency devices are typically single use, so a six-figure number of tests is commercially impractical. Therefore, advanced device development and statistical expertise are needed to justify confidence to the 5 Nines level.<\/p>\n

    Trend 2: Reusable drug delivery devices\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Many drug delivery devices can be developed as either disposable or part-reusable (Figure 1). In our \u201cDrug Delivery Device Trends for 2022<\/a>\u201d article,(8)<\/span>\u00a0we identified a trend whereby pioneering devices tend to be partly reusable, and then wholly disposable versions appear and take some of the market. Many of the devices in development indicate that there is renewed interest in reusable devices. Drivers for this trend are likely to include the following:<\/p>\n