Osteoporosis is a condition that makes bones weak and brittle. There’s a good medicine for it, but people have to take it with a needle. Now, there might be a way to take this medicine as a pill.
This news was shared at ENDO 2023, a big meeting of hormone doctors in Chicago, Illinois. Arvinder Dhalla, Ph.D., is a researcher who works with a company called Rani Therapeutics in San Jose, California.
He said they have made a “robotic pill” that can safely deliver the osteoporosis medicine called teriparatide.
Teriparatide is a synthetic version of a natural hormone in our bodies. It has been used for many years to treat osteoporosis. Until now, patients had to get a daily injection of this medicine for up to two years.
How Does the Robotic Pill Work?
When a person swallows the robotic pill, it travels safely through the stomach to the intestines.
There, it releases a tiny balloon that has a small syringe, or needle, filled with the medicine. This needle then injects the medicine into the intestines.
“Our intestines don’t feel pain from needles, so this is a painless way to get the medicine,” said Dhalla. The needle then dissolves, and the medicine gets absorbed. The tiny balloon also deflates and leaves the body safely.
The Study and Its Results
Dhalla’s team did a study with 39 healthy women to see how safe and effective the robotic pill was. This pill is called RT-102. They divided the women into three groups.
Two groups got the pill with either a low or high dose of the medicine. The third group got a regular injection of the medicine.
They used special imaging to see where the pill went in the body. They also took blood samples to see how much of the medicine got absorbed.
The study found that the body absorbed the medicine from the robotic pill as well or even better than from the injection.
“This is a big step forward in changing injections into pills,” said Dhalla. “This could mean less painful treatments for people with chronic illnesses.”
Dhalla is expected to talk more about this at the ENDO 2023 conference. This exciting development means that one day, people with osteoporosis might not have to get painful injections anymore.
They could just swallow a pill instead.
If you care about bone health, please read studies about bone problem that may strongly increase COVID-19 death risk, and this exercise may slow down bone aging.
For more information about bone health, please see recent studies about healthy diet that may be bad to your bones, and results showing too much vitamin may increase your risk of bone fractures.
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