Small pill robots may change the way drugs are administered

Many biologic drugs are very "feeling", they can only be administered by injection, and if they are taken orally, the digestive system will destroy the effective structure. However, injections are a hard-to-follow thing, especially for some chronic diseases, which require long-term maintenance and treatment. For example, diabetes, which we are familiar with, requires accurate daily use of insulin to balance blood sugar levels.

The pain and psychological stress caused by long-term drug injection are hard to ignore. Is there any way to achieve the same therapeutic effect in other more friendly ways?

Image source: medGadget

A company called Rani Therapeutics has invented a pill-type drug delivery device that can be used for the delivery of biological agents such as insulin in the gut. The delivery of insulin has always been a very interesting research direction in the scientific community. Scientists have adopted a variety of ideas, such as inhalation, slow release, insulin pump, etc., and how does this device find another way to do this?

The CEO of Rani Therapeutics is Mr. Mir Imran. Image Source: medGadget

The CEO of Rani Therapeutics is Mr. Mir Imran, a well-known figure in the medical invention industry. He is a prolific inventor of medical devices, founded more than 20 life science companies, and has more than 300 issued patents, most notably his pioneering FDA-approved automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator. The inventor has such a remarkable invention achievement, and naturally this pill-type drug delivery device is also inevitably bright.

Rani drug delivery device image source: medGadget

The reason for wanting to make such a drug delivery device is because Mir, a friend of a pharmaceutical company, talked to him about the fact that pharmaceutical companies have spent billions of dollars over the past 40 years trying to convert only drugs that can be injected into orally. Pills, because such a direction is very meaningful, will affect millions of patients as well as the entire medical market.

Mir thought about whether a method can be used to protect the activity of protein drugs such as insulin before reaching the intestine, and then to inject into the intestinal tract wall when the drug reaches the intestine. Because there is no receptor for severe pain inside the intestine, intestinal injection will be more comfortable and better compliant than skin injection. On the other hand, the intestine is rich in capillaries, and the drug can be the fastest. Entering the blood circulation system, intestinal administration is a very promising option.

The device, called Rani, has a similar shape to a regular capsule, but the interior and materials are carefully designed. Mir explained that the Rani device is essentially a small swallowing auto-injector that delivers the drug directly to the highly developed intestinal wall, allowing the drug to be quickly absorbed into the bloodstream. How to trigger automatic injection is a challenge in the design of this device. MIR was inspired by the fact that one day he had eaten a spicy Indian meal and soaked a piece of Alka Seltzer. When it happened in the glass, Mir thought of the answer, the inflatable balloon and the injection needle.

So, the Rani device was born.

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