Medical Wearables, Stick to Skin Biosensors, and Transdermal Patches

Wearable medical solutions, including wearable devices, biosensors and transdermal patches improve patient diagnosis and treatment while reducing healthcare costs. They enable monitoring and drug delivery outside of clinical settings.

What are Medical Wearables and Stick-to Skin Biosensors?

Medical Wearable Devices are sensors specifically designed to measure a person’s biometric data like vitals, physical activity, or other physiological measurements, and are worn by the user. These devices can be disposable or durable. Disposable adhesive biosensors are self-contained with every component needed to sense and transmit patient data for a few days or weeks. Durable medical wearables feature a disposable cradle for the durable electronic device that lasts longer than a single adhesive patch.

What are Transdermal Patches?

Transdermal patches deliver medication on a wearable patch where the patient absorbs medication through their skin. Transdermal patches enable extended-release pharmaceutical delivery with comfortable long-lasting skin adhesives.

Boyd has decades of experience designing, manufacturing, and delivering medical wearables of all shapes and sizes with a focus on patient safety and medical efficacy. We take an integrated approach to wearable design to identify complimentary components that can be manufactured and delivered in a single assembly. With our extensive supplier relationships and innovative design support, we combine medical-grade adhesives, printed flex circuitry, injection-molded housings and components, integrated displays, switch technologies, and more to lower cost and streamline production.

Boyd’s medical converting and material expertise spans over 25 years. Our world class Quality Management Systems enable us to consistently fabricate high quality medical products for a broad range of applications. Through our FDA Registration, UL certified fabrication, and RoHS and REACH compliance, Boyd’s team is ready to support your most challenging medical wearable applications with reliability, repeatability, and traceability. We have experienced medical staff throughout operations, engineering, sourcing and customer success support personnel. Our qualified team can support your medical wearable device with thorough project management from concept to commercialization.

Boyd’s medical design team spans six countries and three continents, leveraging seven ISO 13485 Certified manufacturing facilities worldwide. This team provides regulatory support through design, prototyping and manufacturing of Class I, II and III medical devices. Our design for excellence (DFx) services and rapid prototyping enable quick regulatory revisions and responsiveness through design, development and prototyping cycles. Our engineering and manufacturing team maintains deep knowledge and support for medical sterilization services in Class 100 to 10,000 Medical Cleanroom Manufacturing. We pride ourselves in our medical compliant processes and traceability from site to the work order level.

Accelerated patient recovery with increased monitoring of prescribed activities, vitals, and other health events.

Enhanced diagnosis accuracy and speed.

Increased healthcare efficiency, convenience, customization, and cost management.

Improved diagnoses data with more frequent and consistent patient monitoring.

Better preventative care by identifying risks before they become critical.

Increased patient comfort and reduced healthcare staff workload by monitoring outside clinical environments.

Enables patients to take a more proactive role in personal health.

Ideal for insurers with reduced cost per patient.

Small size and thin profile of most wearable designs can limit battery size and lifespan.

Medical grade adhesives, printed circuitry, hydrogels, and other components can be costly when compared to similar, non-wearable medical devices.

Balancing water resistance and breathability for cover layers can be an engineering challenge.

Specialized adhesives must be biocompatible and maintain continuous contact with the skin throughout movement and exposure to the environment.

Wearable devices can have extensive required testing for patient safety and diagnostic efficacy to meet stringent standards.

Patient comfort is key, so solutions must not only stick to skin, but be lightweight and comfortable for the wearable period.

Wearable Biometric Monitoring Devices:

Biomedical wearable devices are medical sensors that track biometric markers and information for patient testing and monitoring. This broad category of wearable devices can measure heart rate, respiration, movement, temperature, and other biometric information for diagnostics, research, or personal health. Stack-ups usually include flex circuits, PCB and battery assemblies, housings, and stick-to-skin adhesives to gather information which is either saved locally on the wearable device or sent wirelessly to the cloud.

Examples include pulse oximetry devices, blood pressure monitors, continuous glucose monitors (CGM), heart rate monitoring, and sleep trackers.

Transdermal Patches:

Transdermal patches are wearable devices that deliver extended-release pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, and other medicines. Transdermal patches are often worn for extended periods of time, so patient comfort, adhesive hold, and breathability are important concerns. Transdermal patch designers tailor them to specific applications to ensure that adhesives, sealing, and other components don’t negatively interact with the released medicines or chemicals.

Microfluidic Diagnostic Devices:

Microfluidic diagnostic devices are small, intricate medical wearables used to monitor glucose, metabolites, pH levels, and other biomarkers from blood, sweat, or other fluids at the molecular level. Microfluidic diagnostic devices include sensors that receive data from the user, and are often made up of many intricate layers, including cover films, cushioning layers, printed flex circuits, hydrogel electrodes, battery and PCB assemblies, and more.

Examples include blood glucose strips, diabetic testing, diagnostic tapes, and in-vitro diagnostic equipment.

Ground Dressing and Electrode Wearables:

Ground dressing and electrode wearables use electrodes and grounding contacts along with stick-to-skin adhesives to measure electrical impulses for diagnostics or transfer electronic pulses to the body for electrotherapy. Like wearable biomedical and diagnostic devices, these can include complex stack-ups, but always include electrodes for electrical current sensing or stimulation. Biocompatibility, durability, and patient comfort are the primary considerations for biomedical and electrode wearables as they are often worn over long periods of time.

Examples include electrocardiography (ECG/EKG), electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG), and electrotherapy devices.

1 billion + skin contact grade products fabricated globally.

One Decade + of supporting wearable device design and fabrication innovation.

World Class customer support through extensive regulatory cycles, approvals, and ramp complexities.

Decades long relationships with the world’s best material suppliers, getting customers the latest materials available.

Continued capacity expansion, capability improvements, and process development.