A prefilled syringe (PFS) is a medical syringe that comes prefilled with a specific dosage of medication.
PFS have been around for more than two decades and represent one of the fastest-growing segments among the injectable drug delivery devices market. The advantages of PFS are their convenience, compliance, reliability, functionality, accuracy, sterility, and safety.
Transparency Market Research report says growth will be triggered by biologics and other potent injectable drugs as well as technical advances in PFS manufacturing and packaging.
For instance, PFS are used to package injectable drugs and diluents such as vaccines, blood stimulants, therapeutic proteins, erythroproteins, interferons, and rheumatoid arthritis.
In the past, metal or glass syringes were popular, but increasingly there has been a movement towards plastic and disposable syringes.
Therefore, the needle needs protected and cannot be re-used (prefilled disposable systems). While growth of PFS looks promising, there are some the key challenges that exist in the PFS market include interface incompatibilities (polymer, silicone oil, particles, adsorption losses, etc.), and physical and chemical instabilities due to leachables and poor barrier performances.
The integration of PFS with advanced delivery systems such as pen and autoinjectors will be one of the key drives for their adoption going forward.