عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Varieties

Scientists Create ‘Robotic Pill’ to Treat Osteoporosis

An illustration picture taken in Lille on May 7, 2017 shows pills, tablets, caplets and capsules of medicine. / AFP PHOTO / PHILIPPE HUGUEN
An illustration picture taken in Lille on May 7, 2017 shows pills, tablets, caplets and capsules of medicine. / AFP PHOTO / PHILIPPE HUGUEN
TT
20
TT

Scientists Create ‘Robotic Pill’ to Treat Osteoporosis

An illustration picture taken in Lille on May 7, 2017 shows pills, tablets, caplets and capsules of medicine. / AFP PHOTO / PHILIPPE HUGUEN
An illustration picture taken in Lille on May 7, 2017 shows pills, tablets, caplets and capsules of medicine. / AFP PHOTO / PHILIPPE HUGUEN

A proven and effective medication for osteoporosis, which is currently only available as an injection, can be administered orally using a novel “robotic pill”, according to a study presented Saturday at ENDO 2023, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting in Chicago.

“We believe this study provides the first clinical evidence of safe and successful delivery of the osteoporosis drug teriparatide through an oral robotic pill,” said Arvinder Dhalla, who leads Clinical Development at Rani Therapeutics, the company that developed the technology. “Data from this study are very encouraging and should give hope to those suffering from chronic conditions that require painful injections, like osteoporosis,” she added.

When a person swallows the robotic pill, it moves through the stomach intact. In the intestine the pill releases a self-inflating balloon with a microsyringe, which injects a drug-filled microneedle and delivers the medication.

“The intestines do not have pain response to needles, so the injection is painless. The needle rapidly dissolves, and the medication is absorbed while the delivery mechanism deflates and is safely passed out of the body,” Dhalla explained.

“The robotic pill, which is essentially a swallowable auto-injector in the form of a pill, is designed to deliver the drug safely and efficiently as a painless intestinal injection,” she said.

The study of 39 healthy women evaluated the safety, tolerability and movement through the body of the robotic pill known as RT-102, containing a dose of the drug teriparatide (PTH 1-34).

Teriparatide is a synthetic form of the natural human parathyroid hormone. It has been in clinical use for decades as an injectable medication (under the brand name Forteo) for rebuilding brittle bones of osteoporosis patients. It is taken as a daily injection for up to two years.

Study participants were divided into three groups. Two groups received either a lower or higher dose delivered with the robotic pill, and the third group received a standard injection of teriparatide. Fluoroscopic imaging was used to track the robotic pill through and out the body. Drug concentrations were measured in blood samples collected over six hours.

The study found the bioavailability (the ability of the drug to be absorbed and used by the body) of the drug delivered by the robotic pill was comparable to or better than the drug given via the injection.

“This breakthrough technology of converting injections into oral pills is a significant step forward towards ending the burden of painful injections for millions of patients suffering from chronic diseases,” Dhalla concluded.

Most Viewed

 
Varieties

Farmed Production of Some Fish - and Seaweed - is Soaring

Farmed salmon -- like the ones grown in pens here in the Australian island state of Tasmania -- are easier to grow than some other fish species. Gregory PLESSE / AFP/File
Farmed salmon -- like the ones grown in pens here in the Australian island state of Tasmania -- are easier to grow than some other fish species. Gregory PLESSE / AFP/File
TT
20
TT

Farmed Production of Some Fish - and Seaweed - is Soaring

Farmed salmon -- like the ones grown in pens here in the Australian island state of Tasmania -- are easier to grow than some other fish species. Gregory PLESSE / AFP/File
Farmed salmon -- like the ones grown in pens here in the Australian island state of Tasmania -- are easier to grow than some other fish species. Gregory PLESSE / AFP/File

The amount of farmed seafood we consume -- as opposed to that taken wild from our waters -- is soaring every year, making aquaculture an ever-more important source for many diets, and a response to overfishing.

According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, nearly 99 million tons of aquatic animals (fish, molluscs like oysters and mussels and crustaceans like prawns) were farmed around the world in 2023, five times more than three decades ago.

Since 2022, the farming of aquatic animals has been steadily overtaking fishing around the world -- but with large disparities from species to species.

Fast-growing species

The two biggest sellers on the market in 2023, carp and tilapia, mainly came from freshwater farming, while other widely-consumed fish, like herring, came just from deep sea fishing

Thierry Laugier, a researcher at Ifremer, France's national institute for ocean science and technology, told AFP that fish farmers choose species that grow quickly and with simple requirements, to be able to control the life cycle.

Sales of the most widely farmed fish in Europe, Atlantic salmon, came to 1.9 million tons in 2023, 99 percent of which were farmed.

"We know how to control the ageing or how to launch a reproduction cycle, through injecting hormones," Laugier said.

Asia main producer
Asia is by far the biggest producer of farmed fish, accounting for 92 percent of the 136 million tons -- of both animal and plant species -- produced under manmade conditions in 2023.

"For carp, it comes down to tradition, it has been farmed for thousands of years on the Asian continent," the Ifremer researcher said.

At the other end of the spectrum, sardines and herring are just fished in the oceans, mainly for profitability reasons as some fish grow very slowly.

"It takes around two years to get an adult-sized sardine," Laugier said.

He said farming of some fish has not yet been started as, "for a long time, we thought the ocean was an inexhaustible resource".

Seaweed

Little known in the West, seaweed nevertheless accounts for almost a third of world aquaculture production.

Almost exclusively from Asia, seaweed production increased by nearly 200 percent in two decades, to 38 million tons. It is mainly used in industry, in jellies, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, the expert said.

He said seaweed also has the major advantage of absorbing not just CO2 in the oceans, but also nitrogen and certain pollutants.

"And from an ecological point of view it is better to farm macroalgae than salmon," Laugier said.