Pills equipped with tiny needles can inject a body from the inside
The ingestible devices administer medicine and then pass out through the digestive tract
For those of us who cringe at the sight of needles, there may someday be a less daunting alternative to getting a shot: swallowing a pill-sized device that delivers medication by painlessly pricking the inside of the stomach.
A prototype of the device, described in the Feb. 8 Science, administers insulin. But similar ingestible capsules could also replace skin injections of antibodies for cancer treatment, hormones and other pharmaceuticals.
Each ingestible device is about the size of a pea and shaped like an acorn, with a lightweight polyester “nut” and stainless steel cap. The shape is designed to guide the device to rest, cap down, on the floor of the stomach. There, it sticks a needle tip composed almost entirely of insulin a few millimeters into the mucous membrane lining the stomach. Once the insulin needle tip dissolves, the device passes through the rest of the digestive system.