Ingestible device injects insulin inside the stomach

Abstract

As a drug, insulin is hard to swallow. Well, not literally. Oral insulin medications exist, and people take them. But insulin is a hefty hormone. It’s too big to penetrate deep into gastrointestinal tissue and therefore absorb into the bloodstream efficiently, and it succumbs easily to the stomach’s harsh acids and enzymes, breaking down prematurely. People with diabetes often take suboptimal insulin pills for years before their doctors switch them to more effective, but burdensome, insulin injections. Now, scientists have created a single-use, ingestible device that delivers insulin by injecting it into the stomach lining; the device then passes harmlessly out of the body. They demonstrated that it works in pigs, administering a dose of the drug comparable to subcutaneous injections (Science 2019, DOI: 10.1126/science.aau2277). The research was carried out by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Medical School, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and Novo Nordisk. Led