DRUG DELIVERY TO THE GUT VIA TORTOISE SHELL
GASTROENTEROLOGY NERD ALERT:
DRUG DELIVERY TO THE GUT VIA TORTOISE SHELL
Check out this amazing article about a promising new technique to deliver medications to the deeper gastrointestinal tract WITHOUT being destroyed by stomach acid (which is a current significant challenge for ensuring adequate drug delivery).
“With a nod to Aldous Huxley and a hat tip to tortoises, researchers have created an ingestible device that can deliver biologic drugs, such as insulin, directly into the gastrointestinal tract.
The swallowable, self-orienting, millimeter-scale applicator, or SOMA—the drug in Huxley’s futuristic novel “Brave New World”—one day could allow doctors to administer drugs orally but avoid contact with gastric fluids, thereby preserving their integrity, according to the researchers, who reported their findings in a recent issue of Science (2019;363[6427]:611-615).”
“The pea-sized device, developed through a collaboration between academic institutions and the Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk, has three design features that help it operate in the hostile environment of the gut. The capsule is weighted so the device can self-orient the delivery end toward the stomach wall—a conformation that mimics the shell of the leopard tortoise (Figure ), which is known for its ability to right itself when flipped on its back, said Giovanni Traverso, MD, PhD, a gastroenterologist and biomedical engineer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.”
In addition to possibly delivering insulin, researchers are also hoping to find a safe, convenient, and effective way to deliver BIOLOGIC medications that are frequently used in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
“The goal is really to make this a system that can be used in the home to facilitate self-administration of biologics—that it doesn’t require supervision,” Dr. Traverso told Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News. “That’s why we put a lot of thought and design into these systems to make them trigger on their own in the right environment, and ensuring that they have the capacity to give these milli-injections.”
At Comprehensive Gastrointestinal Health we make it a priority to stay on the cutting edge of all the technologies and discoveries that science has to offer so that we can share that information with our patients. Please call 224.407.4400 to schedule a consultation or visit compgihealth.com to learn more about what our team can offer you.