Bella-mu | The Intradermic Needle
Bella-mu comprises a range of ultra short, intradermic needles specifically designed to facilitate easy-to-perform and reliable intradermal injections. Bella-mu needles allow for perpendicular injection, an innovative approach to intradermal injection which is reliable and is, after appropriate training, easy to perform. The microneedle is fully inserted until the hub loosely touches the surface of the skin and and then the fluid is simply injected at a controlled depth of about 1mm. A clearly visible bleb/wheal will result, which is the hallmark of a successful intradermal injection.
Due to the extreme small size and super sharp tip of Bella-mu, needle fear and pain are strongly reduced.
Our lead product is the Bella-mu 1.4 needle with an effective length of 1.4 mm. As a high-tech solution disguised as an ordinary injection needle, it fits to any luer-lock syringe.
Application fields of Bella-mu
Cancer
In the field of cancer there is an ever increasing demand for therapeutic vaccines. Bella-mu silicon microneedles provide effective targeting of the antigen presenting cells of the immune system in the skin. In doing so, the immune system can be trained to recognise and clear hostile/carcinogenic cells. For example, Bella-mu is used in a clinical trial of the Korean company Aston Sci. to deliver a cancer vaccination therapy targeting breast cancer. (NCT05163223)
Viral infections
The highly effective immune targeting in the skin allows for dose sparing of vaccines with a factor fluctuating between 5-10x based on the type of vaccine. Together with our partners at the UMC Leiden we demonstrated a 5x dose-sparing potential of Bella-mu, compared to the standard intramuscular injection, for Spikevax (Moderna).
The recent Covid pandemic illustrated the danger of viral infections and highlighted the urgent need for prophylactic vaccines. These vaccines need to be produced in high amounts and need to be made available in a very short time-frame. Dose sparing will enable a faster and more efficient combat against viral infections.
Aesthetics
Silicon microneedles show no wear and do not get blunt. This makes Bella-mu of particular interest to aesthetic treatments such as hyaluronic acid based facial boosters or axillary hyperhidrosis, where repetitive injections at a well defined depth are essential. Currently the Bella-mu is in use by multiple cosmetic specialists, who performed hundreds of successful intradermal injections.