The market
The syringe with needle is the best -selling medical device in the world. It is estimated that 12 billion units are consumed each year, for a market value of around 2.5 billion dollars. It is estimated that 70 % of all syringes and needles are used for insulin administration. Consequently, the market is expected to continue to grow at a sustained pace during the decades to come, because the number of diabetic patients should go from 285 million in 2010 to 438 million in 2030. India, with 50 , 8 million inhabitants, has the largest diabetic population in the world, followed by China with 43.2 million. In addition to the dramatic increase in diabetes, the market will develop due to incessant evolution towards disposable syringes to eliminate the risk of contamination. The American market now represents the largest market in the world with 6 billion units per year. The day all Chinese and Indian patients have been diagnosed and treated, these two markets alone require 38 billion needles per year! The increased use of disposable equipment and medical devices leads to the annual production of approximately 3.2 million tonnes of medical waste. The syringes with needles represent the largest category in units, but perhaps the smallest in weight. These used needles represent a major risk for health, with approximately one million bodily injuries each year, and this number continues to increase. This resulted in the development of safety systems by which the needles retract after use. The cost of disposable needles has dropped the unit for a standard needle, 25 cents for an ultra -fine needle, and the most expensive could cost up to 40 cents per unit at 10 cents. This high volume and standardized product on a global scale has enabled a few companies to head the peloton. Becton-Dickinson (United States), Terumo (Japan) and B. Braun Melsungen (Germany) are the largest producers with an annual production capacity of more than 2 billion units. These major players have perfected the core business approach, the management of the supply chain resulting in an ever lower unit price.Innovation
The introduction of safety needles represented a major breakthrough ten years ago. The higher cost associated with security has been absorbed by insurance systems around the world. However, the biggest challenge for the medical profession in general and manufacturers of medical devices in particular is the phenomenon known as the "needle phobia". This disease affects more than 10 % of the world's population. Fear of the needle is so strong that patients avoid medical care. Based on general observations, the number of people who die because they have not sought to be treated because of their needle phobia is much higher than that of people who die from injury caused by needles . One of the recent innovations to overcome this phobia is the vibrant needle that reduces pain thanks to tiny drilling movements or adding a special coating at the end.
Masayuki Okano, President of Okano Kogyo Corporation, a small Japanese metallurgical company, always wondered how it is that the mosquito can pushing his trunk without pain in our skin, even without causing a reaction when the suction of the begin. He and his friends of Terumo Corporation (Japan) realized that the trunk is not cylindrical - as are generally the needles - but rather conical. While scientists and production engineers claimed that the conical form would certainly slow the injection and reduce the efficiency of production, Okano-san has proven them wrong on both points. The slimming of the injection needle, both inside and outside, almost forcing the liquid medication to flow like a vortex, allows rapid and effective administration like any other needle. And, to everyone's surprise, but not that of Okano-San, this needle causes no pain. This innovation is based on geometry and replaces the application of local anesthesia before the insertion of a needle. The substitution of chemistry (or metallurgy in the case of coatings) by physics is one of the fundamental principles of the blue economy.
With a diameter of only 0.2 mm, this needle is the finest on the market. A professor of physics and materials of materials said that a thin metal sheet, combined with the 20 % reduction in the tip to create the desired conical shape, could not be produced in series. However, Okano-San invented a new production approach, micro-bouting of the sheet metal before lamination of metal, thus preparing easy assembly for mass production. Then, the engineers of Terumo designed the effilating equipment to complete the manufacturing process by putting the needles on the market with a unit sale price of around 25 cents. Although this medical device costs more than the average insulin injection system, pain elimination is enormous relief for diabetic patients, and any other person having to submit to one or more regular injections (or even only one).
