Around 31,705,000 diabetic’s patients are present in India and may grow at a rate of 99% to 50,441,000 by 2025.
All diabetic patients need insulin to administer to their body either intravenously or subcutaneously. It is the growing challenge of the country caused to the age group of 20 – 70 years. Factor influencing to this disease are sedentary lifestyles, unhealthy diets, rapid urbanization, increasing life expectancy, and tobacco use. Kerala has the largest number of diabetic patients followed by Punjab and Tamil Nadu.
As insulin cannot be taken orally has it is badly absorbed by the stomach. Scientists at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has created pea sized pill, vaguely acorn shaped which is inspired by tortoise shell. Its main function is to directly inject insulin into the stomach lining. The capsule doesn’t deteriorate and administer insulin directly to the stomach lining, self-rights, and insert drug into the tissue walls.
Based on pre-clinical trials on pigs, the self-orienting millimeter scale applicator (SOMA) administers insulin into the bloodstream directly. Willem Mulder from Mount Sinai’s Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute describes as a “miniaturized rocket launcher for insulin.” The capsule reaches the esophagus in minutes and releases the drug.
The capsule includes a solitary needle, with the pole being biodegradable and its tips made of compacted freeze dried insulin. The needle is based to a spring held to set up by sugar circles inside the capsule. After reaching the stomach covering the plates disintegrate setting off the microinjection. Since the stomach dividers are without any torment receptors the pate its won’t feel any agony amid the procedure. It works only on an empty stomach which will replace morning shots but not for the patient who injects after post meal.
MIT & Novo Nordisk is currently working to enhance the device, manufacturing, and commercialization. Next step is to move with human clinical trials within 3 years and after pre-clinical results.
“Still, the [pill] represents a platform with the potential to deliver a broad range of biologic drugs, including but not limited to other protein- and nucleic acid-based therapies,” the researchers conclude. Science, 2018. DOI: 10.1126/science.aau2277.