Intelligent Pill Targets Digestive Tract Diseases

A new intelligent pill technology will assist drug development and enable new therapies for debilitating and life-threatening digestive tract disorders such as Crohn's disease, colitis, and colon cancer.

The iPill, called the "next generation” of the camera pill, is delivered in 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. Armed with this pH information and data about capsule transit times, the location in the gut can be determined with good accuracy. The iPill then 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 iPill is being developed by Royal Philips Electronics (Amsterdam, The Netherlands),

"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 Karsten Cremer, Ph.D., of Pharma Concepts (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,” said 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.”

Distinct areas of the intestinal tract have distinct pH profiles; the stomach is highly acidic, upon exiting the stomach the acidity of the gut sharply decreases, and then becomes progressively less acidic from the upper intestine onwards to the lower intestine.

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Royal Philips Electronics
Pharma Concepts