{"id":521163,"date":"2026-06-06T03:37:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T03:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/521163\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T03:37:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T03:37:27","slug":"philly-doctor-invents-epipen-like-autoinjector-for-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/521163\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly doctor invents \u2018EpiPen-like\u2019 autoinjector for phone"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Dr. Edmund Pribitkin watched his teenage daughter rush around as she got ready for a school dance. All she was taking along was a very small clutch purse.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I said to her as she was making her way out, \u2018Well I hope you have your EpiPen in there,\u2019\u201d Pribitkin said, adding that his daughter replied \u201cDad,\u201d with exasperation.\n<\/p>\n

Pribitkin was concerned. At the time, his daughter had a bad nut allergy. She had a prescription for EpiPens<\/a>, which is a brand of an autoinjector device that delivers epinephrine<\/a>, a medication that can stop and reverse anaphylaxis<\/a> in emergency situations.\n <\/p>\n

Pribitkin, who is an otolaryngologist at Jefferson Health, knew just how serious these situations can get, so he insisted that she should take her injector.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018You can\u2019t go there. I mean, you\u2019ve had episodes in the past where you\u2019ve had to go to the emergency room, so you have to take your EpiPen with you,\u2019\u201d he recalled. \u201cAnd she said, \u2018Absolutely not. There\u2019s only one thing that\u2019s going in my clutch purse, and that\u2019s my phone.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The EpiPen and its cylindrical case is a bit longer than a smart phone, and about an inch thick. There just wasn\u2019t room for both.\n<\/p>\n

Pribitkin lost that battle, but thankfully, nothing bad happened that night. However, the experience got him thinking. One thing his daughter was always taking along, everywhere, was her phone.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so, I looked at how an autoinjector works and how it could be put on the back of a phone,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

That was about 10 years ago. Now, Pribitkin is closer to making his idea a reality. Designs and prototypes for SemPresto<\/a>, an epinephrine autoinjector device that can be attached to the back of most smartphones using magnetic technology, are in their final stages. The company is focusing on the next steps, which involve small-batch manufacturing and testing in people.\n<\/p>\n

Partnering biotechnology experts and investors say they\u2019re hopeful that a device like this could make epinephrine more easily accessible to people who need it, especially when it can help prevent a deadly situation.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat matters is that it\u2019s a lifesaving, or life-preserving, medication that you need to have with you when you need it,\u201d Pribitkin said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s the premise of what we\u2019re doing. It\u2019s always there. That\u2019s the whole reason behind this.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[274],"tags":[21058,18,135,19,17,462],"class_list":["post-521163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-allergies","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-medication"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116701078878533801","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}