Science / Medicine : ‘Smart Pill’ Directed by Computer

New York researchers said last week they have developed a computer-controlled “smart pill” that can deliver drugs to a specific site in the human gastrointestinal tract. The capsule contains a tiny radio transmitter to communicate with a miniature computer worn by the patient in a belt or on a vest. When the capsule reaches the predetermined spot, the computer tells it to release the drug.

If the precise targeting of medications by the smart pill proves helpful to patients, in five to seven years it might be used to treat diabetes or diseases of the intestine such as Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis or colon cancer, Jerome Schentag of Millard Fillmore Hospital in Buffalo, N.Y., said at a meeting of the American Assn. of Pharmaceutical Scientists.

Schentag said that while it was known the smart pill works as designed, tests need to be done on whether this method of delivering medication is helpful to patients.

In diabetes, for example, insulin must be injected, because if taken orally it degrades in the stomach and upper intestine. Researchers want to find out if it could be helpful to send the medication in a protected capsule to be released in the lower intestine where it would not be broken down. The researchers hope to begin tests on humans early next year.