Monitoring of Drug Release via Intra Body Communication with an Edible Pill

Oral drug administration provides a convenient and patient-compliant way for drug delivery, especially for chronic diseases and prolonged pharmacological treatments. However, due to the repetitiveness of such therapeutic approach, the patients are led to neglect/forget the therapy affecting the healthcare delivery. Indeed, the non-adherence to pharmacological prescriptions and the unknown amount of real-time drug release result in a non-compliant therapeutic drug level over the protracted therapies. The proposed technology will enable the monitoring of both pharmacological adherence and real-time drug release. The approach exploits a passive intrabody communication (IBC) activation in order to enable an edible pill, realized starting from food additives and food-grade materials, to monitor pharmacological adherence. Following activation, the signal is modulated by IBC coupling switching triggered by pill degradation in a gastrointestinal tract, resulting in a monitored drug release. The proof-of-concept is designed for a targeted release and monitoring of Metformin in the intestine. The system shows an in vitro limit of cumulative drug release detection of 18 µg mL−1 and a limit of real-time drug release detection of 2 µg mL−1 min−1. This platform represents the first solution to monitor passive drug release in real-time, from intake to complete absorption, enabling unique and long-sought healthcare therapy and treatment opportunity.