Skyphos Technologies, a Blacksburg, Virginia–based advanced manufacturing company, has introduced a fabrication platform it calls “additive lithography” — a volumetric approach to producing microscale structures for needle-free drug delivery patches and high-density diagnostic tests. The system uses digitally defined masks to build complete patch geometries in a single two-second exposure, without layer-by-layer processing, molds, or wafer steps.
The company was founded by Elliot McAllister, a former Virginia Tech materials researcher with a background in microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip systems. Skyphos positions the platform as a manufacturing solution to a persistent bottleneck in biomedical device development: the difficulty of producing high-resolution microscale structures at production volumes while retaining the design flexibility required for early-stage clinical development.
“It’s really closer to ‘additive lithography’ than anything else,” said McAllister, Founder of Skyphos Technologies. “We’re moving beyond layer-by-layer constraints to fully three-dimensional geometries. To get fast we need to move away from single pixels, layer heights, and wavelengths. When you add the extra knobs and levers, you can enable high-speed, high-fidelity production directly from digital designs.”
3D printed microneedle arrays
The platform’s primary application target is microneedle arrays, typically arranged in clusters of 20 to 100 needles on patches approximately 1 × 1 cm. Individual needles measure less than 1 mm in height, taper to tips around 10 µm, and are roughly 5 to 6 human hair widths at the base. Skyphos’ system produces solid microneedles for sensing, hollow versions for fluid delivery or extraction, and custom geometries configured through software between production runs.
Rather than relying on fixed tooling or photolithographic masks, the platform controls geometry, material distribution, and surface patterns entirely through software, allowing design changes without retooling. The company says this enables a faster path from prototype to scalable production for applications including vaccine delivery, insulin administration, interstitial fluid sampling, and multiplexed diagnostic platforms.
Multi-material printed structures
Skyphos is developing multi-material fabrication capabilities to enable encapsulation of active compounds within printed microneedle structures. The company described a longer-term roadmap toward time-release drug delivery devices and a category it terms “BIONIC chips”—an acronym for Biologically Integrated Operational Native Circuit—intended to function as programmable microscale biomedical devices.
The company holds two issued patents and ten pending applications across global jurisdictions and has received two international engineering awards in lab-on-a-chip technologies. Skyphos reported active collaborations with academic institutions and international biotech companies working at the intersection of microfabrication and biomedical engineering.
Skyphos is seeking development and manufacturing partnerships with pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, and research institutions. Inquiries can be directed to getchips@skyphos.tech.
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