New EMPIR project – Metrology for Drug Delivery, the role of IPQ

This article presents the state of the art and expected progress beyond it, scientific objectives, and the expected impact on metrology, standards, and society of the new Joint Research Project - MeDD II, Metrology for drug delivery. This project was selected for funding through the EURAMET (European Association of National Metrology Institutes) EMPIR (European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research) programme of the European Commission and the participating countries. It also specifies the role of IPQ as coordinator and Work Package leader of Impact. This project starts in June 2019, for three years.It involves 15 participants from national and designated metrology institutes, private organizations, hospitals and universities. The main objective is enabling traceable measurements of volume, flow and pressure of existing drug delivery devices (and other medical devices, like infusion pumps analysers) and inline sensors that work at a flow rate lower than 100 nL/min, in order to prevent inaccurate measurement results. This project will also investigate fast changing flow rate, liquid mixing behavior and occlusion phenomena in multi-infusion systems with the purpose of improving dosing accuracy in each infusion line. IPQ will develop an optical method in order to decrease the validated CMC range.