The PharmaJet is a spring-loaded gun which fires drugs through your skin, direct into the body. Needle-free injection systems aren't new, but the PharmaJet has some advantages over older designs.

First, there's that spring inside, cocked by putting the unit into a box and cranking a handle. This avoids the need for gas-canisters which need to be replaced and recycled. Next up is the actual injection head. This is loaded from a vial of medication, just like you'd do with a needle syringe, and then popped into the gun. You push the whole unit hard up against the skin, hit the trigger and a thin jet of delicious medicine is forced through the skin and into the body.

Once done, the tip is tossed away. This single-use design avoids contamination, and because there are no sharp bits, it's easier and safer to dispose of the used parts.

For the last two weeks I have had to suffer the Lady jamming a needle into a roll of my belly-fat and plunging a syringe anti-coagulant into my body, to keep things flowing in an immobile broken-leg. While she has drawn blood once, and also hit a muscle (God knows how she found a muscle under the carpet of flab), I think I still prefer the needle. Used properly, you feel almost nothing. With the PharmaJet I'd be screwing up my eyes in anticipation of a sting like you get from a rubber-band fired from point-blank range (although apparently the gun doesn't actually hurt).

The PharmaJet is approved for use in the US, so maybe you'll start seeing this Star Trek style tech in hospitals soon.

PharmaJet product page [PharmaJet via Oh Gizmo]

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