Empowering women worldwide: a long acting, self-administrable contraceptive patch for women with infrequent access to healthcare

This single dose skin patch is applied once to achieve long acting (~ 6 month) and discrete (visibly undetectable) contraception. The tips of the microneedles, visualized here using a pink dye, detach from the remaining patch and lodge with minimal invasiveness beneath the user’s skin. They contain a biodegradable slow release contraceptive offering up to 6 months duration. This empowers women particularly in low resource settings, who have infrequent access to healthcare and require both self-administrable and culturally sensitive (e.g. discrete) contraceptive options.