Frequently asked questions about the needle-free patch

An ongoing Panacea Bio Chem research programme for transdermal peptide patches: a skin patch carrying a peptide across the skin barrier with DMSO as a penetration enhancer, deliberately without microneedles — no needles, no sharps.

With difficulty. The stratum corneum passes small lipophilic molecules and blocks large hydrophilic ones like peptides (Prausnitz & Langer, Nature Biotechnology 2008). Penetration enhancers loosen that barrier temporarily; whether a specific peptide crosses at a meaningful rate is an empirical question — and answering it, peptide by peptide, is the Panacea Sticker programme.

Dimethyl sulfoxide partitions into the stratum corneum, disrupts the packing of its barrier lipids and interacts with skin proteins, temporarily lowering the barrier so dissolved cargo can pass with it. This carrier role is documented in reviews going back to the 1960s (Brayton 1986; Marren 2011).

Microneedles are active, published science — but they remain needles: micro-sharps that puncture the barrier, with the engineering, sterility and disposal questions that implies. Panacea's position is that a truly needle-free patch must not puncture anything, so the programme pursues the chemical-enhancement route instead.

The LM9000 Auto Lamination System from BioDot (Irvine, California) is a modular roll-to-roll platform that continuously laminates web materials onto adhesive-lined backing, with membrane payout, cutting, inspection and take-up modules. It comes from the machine family that manufactures much of the world's lateral-flow tests — and it laminates Panacea's patch stack and TestoStrip alike.

In blood, most testosterone is bound to carrier proteins; the small free fraction is the bioavailable portion, and it diffuses into saliva. Salivary testosterone therefore reflects free hormone and can be collected without needles. The caveats are published too — collection, handling and storage all shift results (Durdiaková et al. 2013) — and TestoStrip is engineered around them.

No. Both are ongoing Panacea Bio Chem work, presented as such. No launch date or availability is claimed.

DMSO was first synthesized by Alexander Zaytsev in 1866; Robert Herschler identified its solvent power at Crown Zellerbach, and Stanley Jacob at Oregon Health & Science University began its medical exploration in the early 1960s. The full credited timeline is on The Story.