Philips Research’s intelligent pill (iPill) for
electronically controlled drug delivery
New York, USA – At
this week’s opening of the American Association of
Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Annual Meeting and
Exposition (Atlanta, USA, November 16-20, 2008) Philips Research
will announce its new intelligent pill technology “iPill”, targeted
at assisting drug development and enabling new therapies for
debilitating and life-threatening digestive tract disorders such as
Crohn's disease, colitis and colon cancer.
In 2001, the first camera pill was approved by the Federal Drug
Administration (FDA) for diagnostic applications. Now seven years
later, for the first time, researchers from Philips will present
their iPill technology – the next generation to the camera pill. The
iPill is a capsule, the same size as a camera pill, and has been
designed to be swallowed and to pass through the digestive track
naturally. It can be electronically programmed to control the
delivery of medicine according to a pre-defined drug release
profile.
The iPill determines its location in the intestinal tract by
measuring the local acidity of its environment. Distinct areas of
the intestinal tract have distinct pH (a measure of acidity)
profiles: the stomach is highly acidic and upon exiting the stomach
the acidity of the gut sharply decreases and then becomes
progressively less acidic from the upper intestine onwards. Armed
with this pH information and data about capsule transit times, the
location in the gut can be determined with good accuracy. The iPill
releases medicine from its drug reservoir via a microprocessor
controlled pump, allowing accurate programmable drug delivery. In
addition, the capsule is designed to measure local temperature, and
report measurements wirelessly to an external receiver unit.
“The combination of navigational feedback, electronically controlled
drug delivery and monitoring of the intestinal tract promises to
make iPill technology a valuable research tool for drug
development,” said leading pharmaceutical drug delivery expert Dr.
Karsten Cremer of Pharma Concepts GmbH, Basel (Switzerland). “In
particular, I recognize the potential of this technology to improve
drug candidate profiling and selection, which could ultimately
accelerate the development of new drugs.”
“As part of Philips’ commitment to provide integrated solutions for
patient care, we are exploring the potential benefits of our
technologies in the therapeutic arena,” says Henk van Houten, senior
vice president of Philips Research and head of the Healthcare
research program. “We foresee that technologies like the iPill, that
combine electronics with diagnostic and therapeutic properties, will
open up the possibility of targeting almost any kind of drug to a
specific location in the intestinal tract.”
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