But what if, instead, you could get that life-saving drug by slapping on a patch while sitting in your living room watching TV?

FORBES: Can SpringLeaf Make Chemo an Outpatient Treatment?

According to Dr Sanberg, the paradox of nicotine use in this case is explained because the drug is being administered continuously, via a patch, thus overloading the nicotinic receptors.

ECONOMIST: Great drug, shame about the delivery system

When there is a complicated murder or, as happened recently, a turf war among drug dealers who had fled a better-policed city outside his patch, Mr Burbeck must draw officers away from the fight against bread-and-butter criminality.

ECONOMIST: Britain's police forces are about to have a rash of mergers

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is requiring new labels on a birth control patch that delivers hormones through the skin.

NPR: FDA Orders Label For Contraceptive Patch

But rotigotine has a distinct advantage: It's the first dopamine agonist to be delivered via a patch, thereby allowing patients to have a consistent dose of the drug in their systems at all times.

FORBES: Putting A Patch On Parkinson's Disease

It developed the Sancusa patch which stops nausea in patients being treated with chemotherapy and Abstral, a pain relief drug.

BBC: Drug firm ProStrakan sold to Japanese group