ON THE CUTTING EDGE: High-Tech Drug Delivery System
Dutch electronics giant Philips Research has developed a prototype for a capsule “[a]bout the size of a plump multivitamin” comprised of “one-third medicine and two-thirds microprocessor, battery, antenna and other miniaturized equipment” that is swallowed with food or water, travels through the digestive tract and can be “programmed to navigate toward a specific trouble spot in the body and deposit its medicine there,” reports The New York Times:
The technology, now being tested in animals but not yet in humans, may one day be used to treat digestive tract disorders like colitis and Crohn’s disease, said Dr. Peter van der Schaar, a gastroenterologist in Heerlen, also in the Netherlands. He worked with Philips in developing the device, which is officially named the Intelligent Pill and which Philips calls the iPill for short. …
Localized drug delivery has advantages: it can mean smaller doses of a drug, as well as fewer problems than when the drug travels through the body in the bloodstream. “The drugs might have fewer side effects while having a higher therapeutic value,” he said. …
“If a doctor sees an adverse reaction,” said Steve Klink, a senior communications manager at Philips Research, a signal could be sent “to override the iPill and not distribute any more of the drug.”
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