The long road to a patch with no needles
Putting a molecule through intact skin is a century-and-a-half story of solvents, entrepreneurs and engineers. These are the names and the years. Where the record is thin, we say so.
1866Alexander Zaytsev synthesizes DMSO
Russian chemist Alexander Mikhailovich Zaytsev — of Zaitsev's-rule fame — oxidizes dimethyl sulfide and reports dimethyl sulfoxide for the first time. For nearly a century it remains a laboratory curiosity: a colourless, oddly garlic-adjacent liquid with an unmatched talent for dissolving almost anything.
1961–63Herschler finds the talent; Jacob finds the medicine
At Crown Zellerbach, a paper company, chemist Robert Herschler shows DMSO is an industrial solvent of unusual power — and notices it slips through skin carrying dissolved compounds with it. He introduces it to Stanley W. Jacob, a surgeon at the University of Oregon Medical School (now Oregon Health & Science University), who begins the medical exploration of DMSO and becomes its lifelong champion. The skin-carrying property is what endures: DMSO becomes the archetypal penetration enhancer.
Brayton C.F., Cornell Veterinarian 76, 61 (1986) — review
1968–79Zaffaroni's ALZA invents the modern patch
Alejandro Zaffaroni — the Uruguayan-born serial founder of Silicon Valley biotech — starts ALZA in 1968 around a radical idea: drugs as engineered systems, not pills. ALZA's transdermal therapeutic systems culminate in the first approved transdermal patch, scopolamine for motion sickness, reaching the US market around 1979–81. The patch era begins.
1994BioDot industrializes the laminate
Dr. Thomas Tisone and Michael Surmanian found BioDot in Irvine, California, to automate the manufacture of lateral-flow tests — the layered strips behind home pregnancy tests and, later, half the world's rapid diagnostics. Dispensing reagents in picolitre lines and laminating layered webs onto adhesive backing become one industrial discipline. BioDot platforms (5,600+ systems in 60+ countries; the company is now part of ATS Automation) help produce billions of tests per year. Its LM9000 Auto Lamination System is the roll-to-roll lamination workhorse of that world.
2008Prausnitz & Langer map the barrier
Mark Prausnitz (Georgia Tech) and Robert Langer (MIT) publish "Transdermal drug delivery" in Nature Biotechnology — the field's reference map: the stratum corneum's brick-and-mortar barrier, why only small lipophilic molecules cross unaided, and the four enhancement families (chemical, electrical, ultrasonic, and the newcomer: microneedles). Every transdermal peptide programme since stands on this review.
Prausnitz M.R., Langer R., Nature Biotechnology 26, 1261 (2008) — abstract
2011The enhancer literature consolidates
Keith Marren's review in The Physician and Sportsmedicine surveys DMSO as a penetration enhancer for topical drugs — mechanism (lipid-fluidization, protein interaction), concentration-dependence, and the practical trade-offs. The chemical route to transdermal delivery, unfashionable next to microneedles, keeps its evidence base.
Marren K., Phys Sportsmed 39, 75 (2011) — abstract
2006–13Saliva earns its place in hormone testing
Because only the free, protein-unbound fraction of testosterone enters tissues — and diffuses into saliva — salivary testosterone tracks the bioavailable hormone. Goncharov and colleagues demonstrate free-testosterone measurement in saliva across healthy men and patients with androgen disorders (2006); Durdiaková and colleagues at Comenius University, Bratislava, document how collection, handling and storage shift salivary testosterone results (2013) — the engineering constraints any honest saliva test must design around.
Goncharov N. et al., Aging Male 9, 85 (2006) — abstract · Durdiaková J. et al., Steroids 78, 1325 (2013) — abstract
2024–25The field trends two ways at once
Microneedle engineering accelerates — a wearable osmotic microneedle patch demonstrates sustained delivery in animal models (Science Translational Medicine, 2024). At the same time, solvent-based transdermal peptide delivery re-emerges: an elastin peptide crosses skin assisted by a betaine-based deep eutectic solvent (Biomaterials Advances, 2024). Both forks are live science; the needle-free fork is the less crowded one.
2026Panacea Bio Chem — the Sticker, and TestoStrip beside it
Panacea takes the chemical fork and states the constraint as a slogan: no needles, no sharps — not even microscopic ones. The Panacea Sticker programme pairs DMSO-assisted permeation with peptide-stabilizing formulation work and manufactures the laminated stack on the BioDot LM9000 platform. The same platform laminates TestoStrip, Panacea's saliva testosterone test — built around the handling caveats the 2013 literature documented. Permeation claims will follow measurements; this is ongoing work, presented as such.
Ongoing Panacea research · in-house measurements, labelled as such