New Oral Pill With ‘Chemical Micromotors’ Delivers Insulin Directly Without Jabs

Chronic conditions can be difficult to manage. For example, when it comes to diabetes, patients often have to administer painful injections daily. What if the life-saving drug could be delivered just by swallowing a pill, like with a headache or cold?

Unfortunately, for decades, scientists have been unable to package insulin as a mainstream oral pill because its extremely fragile molecule breaks down in stomach acid before reaching the intestines to be absorbed into the blood. 

One way researchers have tried to get around the problem is by way of using nanoparticles, which protect the insulin within the medicine till it reaches a patient’s pancreas. Such a breakthrough was made by a team at Yale last year, though it has not moved on to clinical trials just yet. 

Now, a group of scientists in China has come up with another method of developing an oral pill that can ferry insulin safely to the intestines, and then actively dig into an individual’s intestinal walls to deliver the drug. 

The new pill, which comprises a solution of insulin mixed with a layer of liposomes, baking soda, and coated in esterified starch solution, uses special chemical micromotors to propel it forward once it lands in the colon. 

Naturally, each of these components serves a purpose. The starch protects the tablet in a patient’s digestive system, and once the pill breaks down, magnesium in the microparticles reacts with water in the intestines to form hydrogen gas bubbles. 

This reaction is what propels the pill toward the lining of the colon, where it can then be absorbed into the bloodstream more efficiently. 

After testing the mini-tablets in rats, the team found the medication significantly reduced the critters’ blood glucose levels for over five hours, and helped them maintain a glucose level nearly as low as that with injected insulin. 

While more work is needed to determine if the drug will ever be ready for widespread use, the researchers posit that the findings point to a “concrete step” by which oral formulations could one day replace injection-only drugs. 

[via New Atlas and American Chemical Society, cover image via Photographerlondon | Dreamstime.com]