Lilly’s KwikPen developed using “human centric” design
The disposable product, which is being made available through the National Health Service (NHS), is intended for patients who “simply want to dial and administer their insulin dose quickly and easily.”
Kwikpen was premiered in South Africa before being released in the US and Japan earlier this year. In an interview, Breslin set out some of the design principles and motivations for developing the product and how it fits with the company’s “human centric” approach.
Breslin explained that Lilly, which produces a wide range of insulin pens and administration products, had identified demand for a simplified, no-frills “ready-to-use” insulin option that has as little impact as possible on patient quality of life.
This idea is in keeping with comments made by health care professionals across the NHS, including Tracey Bushell, a specialist diabetes nurse from the Surrey Primary Care Trust.
She said that: “One of the problems that [diabetes] patients experience most when using pre-filled insulin pens is that the plunger is too stiff,” adding that patients “either can’t push the plunger down or it hurts to do so because of the extra force required.”
Breslin explained that based on such opinions and other survey dataLilly had “created a design concept which, having been approved for full development funding underwent several iterations and engineering assessments until a final prototype was produced.”
He went on to say that Lilly had based its design selection criteria on ergonomic patient-friendly principles. The resulting product, the smallest pre-filled insulin delivery pen currently available on the market, has the shortest stoke and therefore lowest injection pressure of any on the market.
Breslin stressed Kwikpen’s ease of use, commenting that: “While more technically advanced insulin delivery devices like Luxura and Memoir [also made by Lilly] are available, the new product is intended for the ‘on-the-go’ person.”
Overall, he said that the firm had “invested in excess of $50m in developing, assessing and bringing the Kwipen to market.” The product is made at Lilly’s facilities in the US and France using existing manufacturing capacity.
Breslin also said that Lilly plans to examine the Kwikpen technology in other therapeutic applications, but was unable to go into detail for reasons of commercial sensitivity.
