In recent years, global injectable anti-obesity drugs have received unprecedented attention. Although it is the international pharmaceutical giants Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly that bring fire to such drugs, in China, forward-looking biopharmaceutical companies have also deployed related products early. In 2017, Shanghai Renhui Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd., an innovative biopharmaceutical company, invited IDC of the United Kingdom to design the slimming injection pen for it.

At that time, the concept of weight-loss injection drugs had not yet fully educated the market as it is today. Its price was high but it was not covered by medical insurance and users had to pay for it at their own expense. The main consumers of the products mostly had strong economic strength or had certain social status. As a product business card, the design of the injection pen should not only highlight the high value and reliability of the drug, but also make the user "feel good" every time he interacts with the product with a sense of design, while avoiding excessive medical sense.

When the project was approached, the enterprise had already had an unsatisfactory design cooperation experience. IDC's challenge is to enable the enterprise to rebuild its confidence in the design as soon as possible and find the right design direction accurately so as to deliver the deliverables that meet the expectations of the enterprise and users for the design value.

So, how do you define the right direction?

After analyzing the problems encountered by enterprises, IDC believes that they can be solved from the perspective of design process management. Before the specific design, IDC specially invited the main stakeholders of the enterprise to conduct direct design communication and invited them to participate in all subsequent design reporting meetings. Enterprises have accumulated their own products, users and markets for many years, and their opinions reflect the expectations of the market and users to a certain extent.

IDC in the UK has created a document containing inspiration versions of different design styles. The selected elements from color matching, materials, surface treatment, form and other elements also show the corresponding styles. The design style and direction are selected and defined together with the enterprise team.

In communicating with the company, the team focuses on excluding design styles (design features) that the company considers inappropriate. This can not only help narrow the range of styles, but also maximize the retention of design opportunities and leave enough design space.

Among the multiple styles, 3 design styles are preferred. They are to keep the design of classic simplicity, showing a unique taste of fashion technology, and express the organic flow of love.

However, the specific appearance design is not only the expression of independent style, but also the coordination of internal structure, the realization of usability, the full manifestation of product functions, and the balance of production process.

Elements to be considered in this product include:
• Restrictions of internal structure dimensions on appearance design;
In terms of usability, the scale needs to be clearly displayed and easy to identify. By increasing the friction of the knob, fine control can be realized more effectively and the injection pen can be adjusted to prevent rolling when placed on the plane. The anti-skid and comfort of the product grip, and even the clean surface
• Appearance, the position of the label in the overall appearance and the impact on the overall design, etc.

Fully communicate the design intent and key design points with the enterprise's structural engineers and production engineers, and determine the design size limits and functional limits and other information to ensure the compatibility of appearance and structure, production feasibility and cost accounting.

The final preferred fashion technology direction of the enterprise makes the enterprise shine at the moment. The ingenuity of this design includes:
• Drop-shaped cross-section improves the stability of the pen body. This design highlight is cleverly combined with the usability design feature. The shape of the water drop throughout the pen body also becomes the limit feature to avoid the injection pen rolling in the plane;
According to the visual proportion of the structure and appearance design, the scale area window increases the readability through the larger size and the contrast between the white background and the dark gray text, and also adds details to the concise and overall unified appearance;
• The dose adjustment knob uses a narrow groove to increase the friction during rotation, and the brand logo covered by transparent plastic on the top cover is as eye-catching as the samples displayed in the window.
In addition, considering that the users of the product are not limited to the age of gender, the final colors selected are more neutral purple and green, respectively.

The enterprise and the British IDC reached a consensus that the packaging design should form a unified design style with the injection pen, and the enterprise invited the British IDC to carry out the subsequent packaging design according to the appearance design of the injection pen.

In addition to the style of packaging design, supplier communication and design considerations are also made for the loading form, removal method, structure and transportation stability of the inner shell, and production feasibility of the injection pen.

In July 2023, Shanghai Renhui Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd. GLP-1 class drug benaglutide became the first domestic original research weight-loss drug approved in China. IDC UK is proud of the enterprise and is pleased to see the successful production and launch of the injection pen appearance we participated in designing.

For more information on the case, please visit: https://www.idcdesigncn.com/medical/biome-pen/
To view more works and learn about IDC UK, please visit: www.idcdesigncn.com