Magnetic pill invented for better drug delivery

Published: 28-Jan-2011
Drug Delivery Pharmaceutical

Brown University\'s magnetic pill could ensure delivery to the optimum site in patients

Brown University of Rhode Island, USA has developed a new system that can safely hold a magnetic gelatin capsule in place anywhere in the gastrointestinal tract of a rat. In humans, the system could improve drug delivery and pharmacological research.

The problem with administering many medications orally is that a pill often will not dissolve at exactly the right site in the gastrointestinal tract where the medicine can be absorbed into the bloodstream. The new magnetic pill system developed by Brown University researchers could solve the problem by safely holding a pill wherever it needs to be.

‘With this technology you can now tell where the pill is placed, take some blood samples and know exactly if the pill being in this region really enhances the bioavailability of the medicine in the body,’ said Edith Mathiowitz, professor of medical science in Brown’s Department of Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biotechnology.

The two main components of the system are conventional-looking gelatine capsules that contain a tiny magnet, and an external magnet that can precisely sense the force between it and the pill and vary that force, as needed, to hold the pill in place. The external magnet can sense the pill’s position, but because the pill is opaque to x-rays, the researchers were also able to see the pill in the rat’s bodies during their studies.

The system is not the first attempt to guide pills magnetically, but it is the first one in which scientists can control the forces on a pill so that it is safe to use in the body. They designed their system to sense the position of pills and hold them there with a minimum of force.

‘The most important thing is to be able to monitor the forces that you exert on the pill in order to avoid damage to the surrounding tissue,’ said Mathiowitz. ‘If you apply a little more than necessary force, your pill will be pulled to the external magnet, and this is a problem.’

To accomplish this the team, including lead author and former graduate student Bryan Laulicht, took careful measurements and built an external magnet system with sophisticated computer control and feedback mechanisms. Even after holding a pill in place for 12 hours in the rats, the system applied a pressure on the intestinal wall that was less than 1/60th of what would be damaging.

The next step in the research is to begin delivering drugs using the system and testing their absorption.

The scientists have described the operation of the magnetic pill system in rats online (week of Jan. 17) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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