MOSCOW, October 4 (RIA Novosti) - Are you afraid of needles? Now there is an alternative for you - a pill-like capsule with microneedles inside that are able to inject medication into the stomach lining after being swallowed.
The capsule was developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr. Giovanni Traverso, a gastroenterologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is the key author of the microneedle capsule paper.
As he explained to Radio VR, the capsule is one centimeter in diameter and two centimeters long and can be filled with a variety of different drugs.
Initially the needles inside were 5 mm long and made of stainless steel. They were only released after the pH-sensitive coating dissolved in the digestive tract.
Dr. Giovanni Traverso explained that now the researchers are working on newer needles that are made of sugar and other different biodegradable materials; something that is already commonly digested and shaped in a particular form to enable the delivery.
“Psychologically, a capsule filled by micro needles sounds a bit frightening,” he said. “But when you consider the size of a micro needle, similar size and dimensions of the needle that we see on certain foods that we eat – very small, millimeter, submillimeter in size, and everything is coated – when you are looking at it, it is a very smooth device and looks like any other capsule.”
“And when you explain that the needles are made out of sugar and other biodegradable materials like starches, I think it becomes more, so-to-say, palatable to the user,” he added.
Dr. Giovanni Traverso also explained there are different ways to make a needle out of sugar: you can literally mold it on a surface and pour the sugar inside and let it dry or melt it and then solidify it in a mold.
The initial experimental prototype was made so that the needles would not dissolve and stress the system because the researchers wanted to evaluate their safety. However, in the next generation, they are interested in making a significant portion of the device dissolve, so that anything that is left would pass out of the body.
It is possible, however, that the pill would not dissolve if a person, for example, is suffering from a gastroenterological disease, but the capsule was designed with the purpose of ensuring that it passes through the GI [gastrointestinal] tract without causing any problem if it is unable to dissolve.
Three Main Advantages Over Injections.
According to Traverso, the top reason to use these pills is improved safety; number two is their ease of administration: anybody can now administer it. Number three is that they help ensure that people take their medication; Traverso thinks that a lot of people don’t take medication because it is painful, cumbersome, etc.
Additionally, such pills could easily be taken in public or on the go, whereas diabetes sufferers and others who must self-administer injections often run into problems when they need to leave the home. Such pills can replace many drugs which are currently administered through injections either once or twice a day, Dr. Giovanni Traverso said. People who commonly require multiple injections per day include those undergoing hormone treatment and those suffering from osteoporosis.
Dr. Giovanni Traverso said that the new technology was tested on pigs. The test showed that the capsule delivered insulin more effectively than an injection.
“This is an early stage of work, however promising it is; safety is always a number one concern and we will have to evaluate it among large groups of patients to guarantee safety, ensuring that these devices are not being lodged in the GI tract, and not causing any problems,” he said. “It is an early stage of work, but it is exciting and supports and motivates the next steps of research.”
Once that has been completed, it will probably take from 2 to 5 years for the pills to undergo human trials, he said.
