Device to Improve Diabetics’ Lives Announced as the 2017 Winner of the Horners Award at Interplas

The winner of the Horners Award for Design and Innovation was announced today at Interplas. TickleFlex, an insulin injection aid, was invented by type-1 diabetic Peter Bailey of TickleTEC Ltd. TickleFlex assists insulin-dependent diabetics who self-administer insulin. It fits onto existing needles and is designed to minimise both the pain of injection and the human error that sometimes occurs.

With over four million diabetics in the UK the device was judged to have the potential to make a positive difference in many people’s lives. Judges, including members of the Worshipful Company of Horners and the British Plastics Federation (BPF), determined it to be an ‘innovative medical application of plastics’ versatility in solving a real-world issue’.

The TickleFlex uses ‘specially textured flexing fingers’ to grip a small area of skin and control insertion depth, whilst pain is blocked by ‘saturating local sensory inputs’. For those who suffer from a fear of needles the device is also designed to hide the needle. The judges were impressed by how these features were combined to improve the everyday lives of those who need to self-administer insulin.

A second finalist Phytoponics received the BPF Award for their hydroponic system to grow food in less hospitable climates at less cost. The plastic hydroponics kit is the first of its kind to offer Deep Water Culture technology geared at the hectare scale, which should provide productive benefits to the commercial grower at a much lower cost than has previously been the case.

Developed by Adam Dixon originally of Cardiff University, the judges felt the kit demonstrated a ‘great application of plastics in a design to offer new ways to address large scale sustainability issues like world hunger’.

RPC were also awarded the highly commended certificate for their Plaswood Lock Gates which demonstrated an excellent use of plastic to replace existing wood in lock gates, which would not degrade in the same way wood does while still retaining the wood-like effect. 

Tickle Tec Ltd will be presented with their trophy by the Lord Mayor of the City of London at the Horners Annual Banquet to be held at Mansion House on Thursday 5^th October.