We’re A Step Closer To Getting Oral Insulin Tablets That Could Replace Jabs

In a huge breakthrough for the medical industry, a team of researchers from the University of British Columbia, Canada have reported a game-changing discovery in the development of oral insulin tablets. 

Meant to replace the grueling daily injections diabetics are required to undertake, the latest version of the scientists’ trial on lab rats has yielded an oral tablet that allows insulin to be absorbed in the same way it’s injected. 

“These exciting results show that we are on the right track in developing an insulin formulation that will no longer need to be injected before every meal, improving the quality of life, as well as mental health, of more than nine million Type 1 diabetics around the world,” explained Professor Anubhav Pratap-Singh, the principal investigator of the project. 

Professor Pratap-Singh had been inspired to develop the tablet after seeing his father, who is stricken with the disease, needing to inject insulin three to four times a day for over a decade. 

Dr Alberto Baldelli, a senior fellow in the lab, reported that the current iteration of the tablet now has nearly 100% of the insulin going straight to the liver, overcoming the previous challenges of most of the medicine ending up in the stomach instead. 

“Even after two hours of delivery, we did not find any insulin in the stomachs of the rats we tested. It was all in the liver and this is the ideal target for insulin—it’s really what we wanted to see,” said Qigong Guo, first author of the study. 

Intriguingly, unlike the usual tablets we pop for various ailments, the team’s oral insulin tablet doesn’t require swallowing, but dissolves when placed between a patient’s gum and cheek. This unusual delivery method is key to delivering all of the insulin to the liver without wasting any of the substance along the way. 

Going forward, the scientists will need to conduct further tests and acquire funding before the tablet heads to human trials, though it is clear that the development will no doubt be a more comfortable, cost-effective, and accessible means to insulin for diabetics. 

“More than 300,000 Canadians have to inject insulin multiple times a day. That is a lot of environmental waste from the needles and plastic from the syringe that might not be recycled and go to landfills, which wouldn’t be a problem with an oral tablet,” Pratap-Singh remarked. 

Even more importantly, the team ultimately hopes the tablet will reduce the cost of insulin per dose as it would be easier to manufacture and cheaper to transport.

With patients enduring a further hit from the astronomical prices of the drug, it’s heartening to see researchers working towards making it more accessible and sustainable.

[via Gizmodo and University of British Columbia / Medical Xpress, cover image via Sergey Lavrentev | Dreamstime.com]