Source: Good News Network
New pill can deliver insulin
Capsule that releases insulin in the stomach could replace injections for patients with type 2 diabetes.
Written by Anne Trafton
MIT News
Daily needle injections may soon be a thing of the past for diabetes patients thanks to this latest breakthrough.
An MIT-led research team has developed a drug capsule that could be used to deliver oral doses of insulin as a means of potentially replacing the injections that people with type 2 diabetes have to give themselves every day.
About the size of a blueberry, the capsule contains a small needle made of compressed insulin, which is injected after the capsule reaches the stomach. In initial tests, the researchers showed that they could deliver enough insulin to lower blood sugar levels that are comparable to those produced by skin injections. They also demonstrated that the device can be adapted to deliver other protein drugs.
“We are really hopeful that this new type of capsule could someday help diabetic patients and perhaps anyone who requires therapies that can now only be given by injection or infusion,” says Robert Langer, a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and one of the senior authors of the study, which was published in Science earlier this week.
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Several years ago, a group of MIT colleagues developed a pill that was coated with tiny needles that could be used to inject drugs into the lining of the stomach or the small intestine. For the new capsule, the researchers changed the design to have just one needle, allowing them to avoid injecting drugs into the interior of the stomach, where they would be broken down by stomach acids before having any effect.
The tip of the needle is made of nearly 100 percent compressed, freeze-dried insulin, using the same process used to form tablets of medicine. The shaft of the needle, which does not enter the stomach wall, is made from another biodegradable material.
Within the capsule, the needle is attached to a compressed spring that is held in place by a disk made of sugar. When the capsule is swallowed, water in the stomach dissolves the sugar disk, releasing the spring and injecting the needle into the stomach wall.
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