AstraZeneca and Team Consulting to deliver sustainable trainer pen

AstraZeneca and Team Consulting have been recognised for their new design of a trainer pen that is used to help patients get used to their devices before they inject themselves for the first time.

The device offers a four-step training experience – mix, unlock, unscrew, inject – to accurately simulate delivering a real injection.

The sequential labelling also ensures the correct handling, including turning the pen upside down before injection. Once used, the device can easily be reset by simply reversing the same steps.

Tom Etheridge, Senior Industrial Design Consultant at Team Consulting, said: “We had to create a seamless experience to reduce user error and ensure that the trainer provided patients with the confidence needed to use the ‘real’ injector correctly.”

The training pen has been designed with fewer parts enabling it to withstand repeated use, saving around 240,000 components for every 10,000 devices made.

Georgia Halstead, Consultant Mechanical Engineer at Team Consulting, explains: “In reducing the number of parts and limiting the materials for all of the internal mechanism, we had to ensure that the trainer pen remained robust, especially due to the nature of the device which can be used multiple times to train patients until they feel confident with the injection process.”

This new pen has won a Good Design Award, a global accolade in design and manufacturing.