Drug Delivery Industry Shift to Platform Autoinjectors Over Bespoke Solutions

Chapter of the 2025 Global Drug Delivery System Trends Report

4 minute read

Drug delivery strategies are evolving as pharmaceutical companies increasingly favor platform-based autoinjectors over bespoke designs developed for single therapies. While bespoke designs remain essential for highly specialized or novel formulations, platform approaches are becoming the preferred choice, driven by the growing need for speed, scalability, and cost efficiency. As biologic and biosimilar pipelines expand and competition intensifies, standardized platform solutions offer a faster, more predictable, and lower-risk path to market through pre-validated, modular configurations.

This article explores pharma’s shift toward platform-based autoinjectors and examines the strategic choice facing the drug delivery system (DDS) industry: whether to adopt off-the-shelf platform solutions or develop bespoke devices to balance speed, cost, and differentiation.

Key Drivers: Expanding Pipelines, Market Speed Pressures, and Cost Constraints

Pharmaceutical companies must carefully evaluate the trade-offs between bespoke solutions for autoinjectors, which involve creating a new device fully tailored to a specific therapy, and platform-based solutions, which leverage predefined components and design frameworks that can be adapted to the drug’s characteristics.

The choice is rarely straightforward. Several drug- and patient-related factors shape the decision, including (but not limited to):

Whether the therapy is an originator biologic or a biosimilar.
The stage of the biologic’s development.
The primary container used (pre-filled syringe vs. cartridge).
The formulation’s viscosity and associated requirements for injection force.
The fill volume and intended dosage volume, which can affect both device size and usability.
The target injection time, balancing patient comfort and device performance.
End-user characteristics such as age, disease state, and injection habits, which strongly influence usability requirements.

The industry is shifting toward platform-based autoinjectors across the DDS landscape. Pharma companies are prioritizing these solutions over bespoke devices, driven by several factors:

Competitive intensity and the race for speed: Platform-based autoinjectors significantly reduce development and regulatory timelines by leveraging pre-validated designs that companies can rapidly customize for new drugs. This accelerated approach enables companies to respond quickly to competitive pressures and capitalize on first-to-market opportunities, particularly in fast-moving segments like GLP-1s and biosimilars.
Biologics pipeline growth and chronic disease prevalence: The rapid increase in biologic drugs, many of which require self-injection for chronic diseases like diabetes, obesity, and autoimmune conditions, has created a strong need for platform-based approaches. These platforms can efficiently accommodate similar dosing and enable rapid scaling of production to meet high-volume needs, giving manufacturers a competitive advantage.
Cost efficiency and risk reduction: Platforms with commercial track records are viewed as de-risked solutions, offering regulatory and technical confidence to pharmaceutical partners. Platform-based development helps companies control costs and reduce financial and regulatory risks by minimizing device-specific research and development (R&D) and manufacturing investments.
Patient preference and usability:  A strong market shift toward patient-centric, at-home care and self-administration is underway, particularly for chronic conditions. Platform autoinjectors are designed for intuitive use, safety, and improved adherence, making them highly favored by both patients and healthcare systems.

In addition, supply chain simplification, modular R&D strategies, and the growing potential for digital integration further reinforce the appeal of platforms. These factors explain why platform-based autoinjectors are becoming the default choice for many pharmaceutical companies. The clear industry direction is toward standardized, cost-efficient, and rapidly deployable platform solutions, although bespoke devices remain relevant for highly differentiated therapies or novel formulations.

The market has certainly shifted from bespoke, single-drug injectors to more flexible platform-based devices that support multiple therapies with varying levels of customization.

Massimo Carrara, CEO

Strategic Decision: OTS Platform Versus a Bespoke Solution

Platform autoinjectors (often referred to as “off-the-shelf” or OTS) come with predesigned concepts and established manufacturing capacity. They are pre-validated, scalable, and rapidly deployable across different therapies. These platforms typically offer multiple configuration options, enabling drug developers to customize features for specific therapies while avoiding the cost and time burdens of bespoke device development. Platform solutions lower barriers to entry for biosimilar manufacturers in particular by providing a proven, cost-efficient pathway to market.

Leading DDS players, such as SHL, have developed device platforms like autoinjectors that support customizable designs across a growing number of therapeutic areas where common requirements make standardized solutions viable. Platforms are widely used in cardiometabolic conditions such as obesity and diabetes, where large patient populations and similar dosing needs allow for rapid scaling. These platforms also support biosimilars, where speed-to-market and cost efficiency are critical, and are increasingly applied to autoimmune therapies with recurring self-administration.

To sustain this model, companies are pursuing several strategies:

Expand production capacity: Investing in new state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities to scale output.
Strengthen operational integration: Ensuring seamless collaboration across global manufacturing sites.
Evolve product development models: Translating complex requirements into modular, scalable designs by applying digital modeling, systems engineering, and simulation capabilities.

Platform autoinjectors deliver speed, cost efficiency, and scalability, but they are not without limitations. Platforms may restrict customization, risk competitive overlap (as multiple drugs may use very similar devices), and fall short in optimizing delivery for complex biologics. Platforms cannot always address unique requirements such as high viscosity, challenging injection forces, or highly patient-specific needs, despite ongoing innovation to design devices that can accommodate a wide range of formulations with minimal modifications.

Pharma companies are increasingly opting for standardized platform devices like autoinjectors and pen injectors, prioritizing speed to market, lower risk, and reduced barriers to entry over bespoke designs.

Adam Stops, Head of Drug Delivery Systems