3 M get invisible needles and painless injections.

-3 M develops injection systems without pain through its micro replication in the 60’s patented technology

– from safer roads to injections without pain through faster boats and more efficient aircraft

Madrid, March 2012.- how is passed to avoid traffic accidents to avoid painful vaccines? When it comes to needles, patients most expresses his fear, from a blood draw regular vaccination of a baby. But what would happen if the needles were almost invisible? Better yet, would it be possible to receive an injection almost painless?.

It is possible. 3 M has figured out how to join hundreds of tiny micro-needles in an area about the size of a ten cent coin through micro-replication, a technology originally developed for use in road traffic signals.

Micro 6 decades of innovative applications, replication

It is a technology start-up for the first time in the 1960s, whose process consists of overlapping layers of clone plastic sheeting carved in the shape of pyramid. 3 M scientists discovered that these pyramids exact and case sensitive altering the physical, chemical and optical properties of surfaces of plastic, sometimes in surprising ways.

Already in the 1980s, this solution was applied to traffic signals making thousands of small prisms potenciasen brightness when they were illuminated by the headlights.

Now, the solution has to do with the skin. System 3 M ™ Microchannel contains a small patch of disposable plastic with more than 300 strong microagujas that allows dermatologists to open small holes in the skin.

From this solution, 3 M scientists are developing patches of micro-needles that can be used for vaccines and other medications critical, so easy to use, patients can do it themselves. In this way, will be eliminated many of the more painful injections.

The development of this application started 12 years ago with the idea of micro needles may be used to extract a small amount of blood or fluid of the patients with diabetes to help control your blood sugar.

For Genoveva Martínez, head of the care of the health of 3 M Spain area, “micro needles exist because we have been able to gather several incredible innovations 3 M born in different areas of the company, thereby demonstrating our collaborative spirit and our obsession with finding all kinds of solutions that help to improve the lives of people and contribute to our” customers to succeed in their business ”.

According to Genoveva Martínez, this technology can give more independence to the people affected by chronic diseases, as well as greatly facilitate the protection of an entire population of a pandemic outbreak due to ease and speed for mass vaccination ”.

About 3 M

3 M, with a turnover of almost $ 27 billion in 2010 and nearly 80,000 employees worldwide, has a highly diversified and innovative technological base that allows you to lead different markets of economic activity related to the health care; Consumer and Office; Industry and transport; Security, Personal protection, graphic image and optical systems; Electricity, electronics and telecommunications, with brands such as Scotch ®, Post – it ®, Scotch-Brite ™, Thinsulate ™, Littmann ™, Vikuiti ™, or Volition ™. 3 M operates in more than 60 countries, serving customers around the world and is one of the values that make up the Dow Jones Industrial index, as well as a world leader in sustainability in the sector of goods and industrial services, according to the DJSGI.