TouStar® wins Pharmapack Innovation Award for Eco-Design

Published on: 17th May 2022

TouStar®, Sanofi’s new reusable pen for concentrated Toujeo® insulin, has been recognised with the prestigious Pharmapack 2022 Innovation Award for Eco-Design.

The Pharmapack Awards celebrate the latest innovations within the pharmaceutical packaging, medical devices, health products and veterinary drugs sectors, recognising innovations that improve drug efficacy, user safety or reduced environmental impact. 

Designed with a dedicated replaceable cartridge system, TouStar® is the first reusable injection pen for a concentrated insulin. TouStar® is designed exclusively for Sanofi’s Toujeo® basal insulin cartridges, which contain a concentrated ‘U300’ formula with 50% more insulin than a regular cartridge, making them more convenient, longer lasting and better for the environment. Until now, concentrated insulin has only been sold in disposable pen injectors. This is because of the risk of mixing up a concentrated insulin cartridge with a regular one, which could result in a potentially serious dose error. To prevent users from accidentally attaching incompatible insulin cartridges to TouStar®, a new dedicated cartridge system has been developed. This simplifies cartridge exchange and prevents insulin mix-ups from occurring.

Rob Veasey, DCA’s project leader for the TouStar® development programme, said “It is a real honour that TouStar® has been recognised with a Pharmapack Award for Eco-Design. To enable delivery of concentrated insulin with a reusable pen injector we had to overcome a range of technical, usability, safety and regulatory challenges. The Sanofi and DCA development team can be very proud of what has been achieved with TouStar®, which demonstrates that more sustainable drug delivery devices can also be really great products to use.”

For more information refer to the PharmaPack Innovation Award winners webpage.