Anchoring Injector for Prolonged Dosing of Drugs in the Gastrointestinal Tract

Abstract

Here, we present the first microinjection technology for localized and prolonged (>50× conventional pills) drug delivery through the mucosal barrier in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Oral drug delivery is preferred by patients, but many drugs degrade or are excluded by the mucosal barrier hindering oral bioavailability. The presented system addresses these challenges by carrying drug in a reservoir and diffusively releasing it through hollow microneedles that are inserted and anchored into intestinal tissue. The system is fabricated via a hybrid 3D printing approach that combines the vat photopolymerization (VPP) technique, "liquid-crystal display (LCD)" 3D printing, and the two-photon polymerization (2PP) technique, "Direct Laser Writing (DLW)", to achieve functional meso-to-micro scale structures capable of loading 8.74±0.43 µL (n=6) and diffusional release in ~160 hr. The advances here along with the growing domain of ingestible robotics has the potential to enable highly targeted and effective treatment of systemic and GI diseases with minimized side effects.