ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,257,421, issued on March 25, was assigned to Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GMBH (Frankfurt am Main, Germany).
"Auto-injector" was invented by Matthew Ekman (Cheshire, Great Britain), Yannick Hourmand (Haslingfield, Great Britain) and Timothy Donald Barrow-Williams (St. Albans, Great Britain).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Auto-injector for administering a dose of a liquid medicament includes a housing to contain a syringe with a hollow needle and a stopper for sealing the syringe and displacing the medicament, the housing having a distal end and a proximal end with an orifice to apply against an injection site. A spring means, upon activati...