Students Develop A ‘Watch’ That Comes With A Built-In Epinephrine Shot

If you’re someone who suffers from adverse allergic reactions, like to peanuts or bee-stings, for example, then having an EpiPen on your person could be the difference between life and death. Unfortunately, these devices aren’t the easiest to carry around, meaning that you could lose them, or if they’re in a bag, they might be difficult to find.

Thankfully, it seems that students at Rice University have come up with a clever idea, which is by creating a “watch” which comes with its own epinephrine shot. This means that in the event of an emergency, users will be able to quickly administer themselves a shot (or someone could do it for them) by accessing it from their wrist.

Dubbed EpiWear, this device was developed by bioengineering majors Albert Han, Alex Li, Jacob Mattia, Justin Tang, and freshman Callum Parks. According to Tang, “The idea came from me, because I suffer peanut allergies. I’m very self-aware and worried about my life, but it was always difficult for me to bring something as bulky and obtrusive as this when going to dinner with friends or just going out at night.”

EpiWear is expected to be capable of delivering 0.3 milliliters of epinephrine per shot, the same as commercially available devices. It is capable of being folded into three parts which can then be fitted into a watch on the wrist. At the moment the prototype is a bit big, but the team claims that this is due to the 3D printing process.

One of their goals is to get it made commercially where it will be less expensive and also more stylish, which in turn could encourage people to wear it. That being said, we have to wonder if such a device or concept could be of interest to companies such as Apple, who last we heard was working on a non-invasive way of glucose monitoring measured through the Apple Watch.

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