In a world obsessed with optimizing everything—from cloud compute cycles to last-mile delivery—the Soin brothers are tackling a surprisingly analog problem: swallowing pills.
Their solution? Oral Thin Film (OTF)—a deceptively simple, paper-thin strip that dissolves on the tongue and delivers precise doses of pharmaceuticals or nutraceuticals without water, injections, or the friction of traditional dosing methods.
At the center of this innovation is Soin Pharmaceuticals, a startup founded by brothers Aviraj, Dhilen, and Brijen Soin, who are part of a new wave of technically fluent, research-driven young founders rethinking healthcare delivery systems from first principles.
From DIY Inventors to Drug Delivery Innovators
The Soin brothers didn’t start in pharma—they started by building.
Early on, they filed patents for a bioluminescent tornado-maker toy and a GPS-based tracking system, signaling a pattern: identify inefficiencies, engineer solutions. That mindset scaled quickly.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, while many students paused, the Soins accelerated. They built cryptocurrency mining rigs, optimized systems, and—critically—reinvested those proceeds into intellectual property development and startup formation. It was less about crypto and more about capital formation for future innovation.
That pivot laid the groundwork for what would become their most ambitious project yet: redefining how medications enter the body.
Why Oral Thin Film Matters
Oral Thin Film technology sits at the intersection of materials science, pharmacokinetics, and user experience design.
Instead of swallowing a pill or receiving an injection, a patient places a small rectangular strip on the tongue. Within seconds, it dissolves—delivering active compounds through oral mucosal absorption, often bypassing first-pass metabolism and improving bioavailability.
For patients, that translates into:
- No needles
- No water required
- Faster onset potential
- Improved adherence (especially for pediatric and geriatric populations)
For developers, it opens a new design space: precision dosing in a frictionless format.
A Personal Problem, Engineered Solution
For Aviraj Soin, this wasn’t just an engineering challenge—it was personal.
“I’ve dealt with allergies for years, and I was honestly just tired of the routine—weekly injections, scheduling, the whole thing,” Aviraj says. “We started asking: why can’t something this simple be delivered in a strip you take every day?”
That question became a design constraint—and then a product thesis.
Dhilen Soin adds a systems-level perspective:
“If you look at it like a UX problem, pills are clunky. Injections are worse. Oral thin film is elegant—you just place it, and it’s done. No friction.”
The brothers approached OTF not just as a delivery mechanism, but as a platform technology—one that could scale across vitamins, dental health, and even more complex pharmaceutical applications.
Building Soin Pharmaceuticals
Working out of a local research lab and collaborating with contract manufacturers, the brothers have already contributed to:
- Topical pain formulations currently undergoing FDA clearance
- Plant-based anti-inflammatory compound exploration
- Oral thin film systems for vitamins and oral health
They are also deeply embedded in academic research. Over just two summers, Aviraj and Dhilen each authored multiple academic papers for peer reviewed medical journals and 12 peer-reviewed abstracts (each as a first author), presented at:
- Ohio Society of Interventional Pain Physicians Annual Research Symposium (2024)
- Midwest Pain Collective Annual Research Symposium (2025)
- The California and The American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians Annual Symposiums (2026)
Simultaneously, they are students at Stanford Online High School, balancing advanced coursework with real-world pharmaceutical development—something rarely seen at this stage.
The Bigger Picture: Reprogramming Compliance
Healthcare has a compliance problem. Even the most effective drug fails if patients don’t take it correctly.
The Soin brothers see Oral Thin Film as a compliance engine.
“If you remove friction, people actually follow through,” Dhilen explains. “That’s true in software, and it’s true in medicine.”
Their vision is to push OTF beyond niche applications into a mainstream delivery platform—one that could replace or complement pills, liquids, and even some injectables.
What Comes Next
The trajectory is clear: miniaturization, personalization, and simplification of drug delivery.
Soin Pharmaceuticals is positioning Oral Thin Film not as a novelty, but as infrastructure—akin to how APIs quietly transformed software.
The Soin brothers represent a broader shift: young founders who are not waiting for credentials to innovate, but instead are building, testing, and iterating in real time.
In a healthcare system overdue for redesign, their approach is refreshingly direct:
Make it simpler. Make it smarter. Make it dissolve.
Disclaimer: GeekWire newsroom and editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this content..
