A study published in the February 16 online edition of Science Translational Medicine shows that MIT professors and scientists from MicroCHIPS Inc. Robert Langer and Michael Cima have succeeded in developing a microchip that delivers daily doses of an osteoporosis medication, which is usually given by injection. This success derives from an idea the researchers developed about 15 years ago – to create a programmable, wirelessly controlled microchip that could deliver drugs in a patient’s body after implantation. The study was funded and overseen by MicroCHIPS.
According to Langer, these positive test results could help lead to a new generation of telemedicine – administering medications over a distance.
Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT, explains:
“You could literally have a pharmacy on a chip. You can do remote control delivery, you can do pulsatile drug delivery, and you can deliver multiple drugs.”
The team used the programmable device to administer teriparatide (an osteoporosis medication) to seven women aged between 65 and 70 years. The researchers discovered that the device was able to administer dosages similar to injections, and there were no negative side effects.
These programmable microchips could significantly change not only osteoporosis treatment, but treatments for several other diseases, including multiple sclerosis and cancer.
Robert Farra, president and chief operating office at MicroCHIPS and lead author of the study, said:
“Patients with chronic diseases, regular pain-management needs or other conditions that require frequent or daily injections could benefit from this technology.”
Cima, the David H. Koch Professor of Engineering at MIT, explained:
“Compliance is very important in a lot of drug regimens, and it can be very difficult to get patients to accept a drug regimen where they have to give themselves injections. This avoids the compliance issue completely, and points to a future where you have fully automated drug regimens.”
The team began working on the device in the mid-1990s. Under the direction of Cima and Langer, John Santini, then a University of Michigan undergraduate visiting MIT, worked on the implantable chip as a summer project. Santini, who is also an author of the study, later returned to MIT as a graduate student to continue the project.
The team published their first findings in Nature in 1999, and MicroCHIPS was founded and licensed the microchip technology from MIT. MicroCHIPS refined the chips, including adding a release system that works reliably in living tissue and a hermetic seal.
Langer says:
“Teriparatide is a polypeptide and therefore much less chemically stable than small-molecule drugs, so sealing it hermetically to preserve it was an important achievement.”
In Denmark in January 2011, participants of the clinical trial had the chips implanted during a 30-minute procedure at a doctor’s office using local anesthetic. The chips remained in the participant for 4 months. Cima said that the participants revealed that they often forgot they even had the implant and that the device was proved safe.
Each of the microchips used in the trial stored 20 doses of teriparatide. Each dose was individually sealed in tiny reservoirs approximately the size of a pinprick. Each reservoir is sealed with a tiny layer of titanium and platinum that melts when a tiny electrical current is applied, releasing the medication inside the body. The company is currently working on creating devices that can hold hundreds of drug doses per chip.
As the chips are programmable, doses can be triggered remotely by radio communication over a special frequency called Medical Implant Communication Service (MICS), or be scheduled in advance. The team aim to extend the MICS range as the current versions only work over a distance of a few inches.
In the current study, the team measured bone formation in osteoporosis patients implanted with the chip, and discovered that is comparable to that observed in individuals receiving daily injections of teriparatide. Furthermore, the researchers found that the dosages administered by implant had less variation than the dosages administer by injection.
Farra explains that the company plan to seek approval for additional human trials, once the a version of implant that can hold a larger quantity of doses is ready. In addition, MicroCHIPS have created a sensor that can monitor glucose levels. In the future such sensors could be combined with chips that contain drug reservoirs, generating a chip that can adapt medication treatments in response to the condition of the patient.
Written by Grace Rattue