Philips Research has developed a new technology, called 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.
The ipill is a new generation camera pill - a capsule 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 pharmaceutical drug delivery expert Dr. Karsten Cremer of Pharma Concepts GmbH. "In particular, I recognise the potential of this technology to improve drug candidate profiling and selection, which could ultimately accelerate the development of new drugs."
"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 programme. "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."