OmniJect Corporation plans to license its patented, inexpensive, self-disabling and self-encapsulating safety syringes to medical device manufacturers. OmniJect is currently in licensing discussions with a number of syringe manufacturers, company officials note.

OmniJect Corporation, a privately-held company specializing in safer, advanced drug delivery systems.

"OmniJect safety syringes are the least expensive, easiest to use safety syringes designed to protect healthcare workers and patients from sometimes often deadly accidental needle sticks," says Bob Schumacher, VP of Marketing.

OmniJect safety syringes work just like standard syringes, requiring nothing out of the ordinary for the user to do to activate the safety features.

After injecting medication into the patient, the caregiver simply continues pressing on the plunger. The plunger pushes a sheath out of the syringe that covers the needle and locks into place. The sheath encapsulates the needle and assists in withdrawing it from the patient. The plunger is disabled at the same time, making the syringe unusable, with the needle safely encapsulated inside the sheath.

The OmniJect safety syringe adds only one small plastic part inside the syringe, and therefore is not appreciably more expensive to manufacture than an ordinary syringe. It can be made on existing syringe manufacturing lines in most common sizes. "For these reasons, the OmniJect safety syringe is the most cost effective solution for protecting healthcare workers from the risks of dangerous needle sticks, as well as preventing the illicit use of used syringes," stresses Schumacher.

Healthcare workers in the U.S., approximately 5.6 million strong, suffer as many as 800,000 sharps injuries -- mostly needlesticks -- each year. That's one out of every seven workers accidentally stuck by a contaminated sharp every year. It has been estimated that only one out of three needlesticks are even reported. If that estimate is correct, over 6,000 healthcare professionals in the U.S. will today incur an accidental needlestick injury.

Over 20 types of infectious agents have been transmitted through needlesticks, including HIV, the deadly hepatitis C virus, hepatitis B virus, tuberculosis, syphilis, malaria, herpes, diphtheria, gonorrhea, typhus and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. For these reasons, the Federal government and 21 states have passed laws requiring healthcare facilities to offer safety devices that comply with the U.S. Needle Stick Law and OSHA requirements to protect patients and healthcare workers from sharps injuries.

Accidental needlesticks are not just a U.S. problem. For example, there are more than 100,000 needlestick injuries in hospitals in England each year. Needlestick injuries are virtually undocumented in many developing countries, but the total number probably equals or exceeds those in the industrialized world.