Are pills becoming passé with the rise of the implants?

With patient adherence and prevention of overdose hot topics for pharma, regulatory and healthcare sectors, the rise of implants for the sustained and controlled delivery of drugs is perhaps an inevitable trend.

Pills can be forgotten about completely or taken too regularly, particularly in light of the ageing population and an increasing level of chronic diseases — where more pills are required to be taken by older patient populations.

Recently highlighted on the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) agenda of issues to tackle was that of opioid abuse. This issue has been the focus for a couple of companies, Braeburn Pharmaceuticals and Titan Pharmaceuticals, which have released an implant, the size of a matchstick, for the delivery of buprenorphine. The FDA approved the Probuphine implant at the beginning of last year and it lasts up to six months in the patient. It can treat opioid addiction by continuously providing the patient with doses of buprenorphine over the six-month period, while preventing the possibility of the patient overdosing or selling the tablets illegally to others.

Further to the application of this under the skin technology in opioid addiction, Titan is working on a similar implant for the treatment of Parkinson’s diseases while Braeburn is looking at an implant for the treatment of Schizophrenia — as reported in a recent article in Fortune.

Across the Atlantic, in Europe is the potential of electrical implants, as reported in Wired Health. These are being developed by Galvani Bioelectronics and could potentially offer a treatment route that bypasses the brain and circulatory system altogether, thus avoiding side effects.

The company’s president Kris Famm said in the article: “More than two billion people suffer from chronic diseases where bioelectronics medicines could one day be part of the therapeutic solution. Our bodies use electrical signals in nerves to tune their functions; our society uses the same principles to control devices and systems all around us — these worlds will inevitably meet.”

However, there are still numerous challenges to overcome with electrical implants, such as that of charging them once implanted in the body. Although Famm believes there will be options, such as wireless charging or utilising the body’s glucose or movements to charge the implant. Although, as stated in the report, Galvani is backed by some influential companies it will be an interesting avenue to keep an eye on.

Despite these rumblings of competition in the field of drug delivery the pill still reigns supreme and will undoubtedly remain the favoured method for some time to come. It will be worthwhile watching the implant arena, however, as we enter an era of trying to improve patient adherence and, as such, reducing those ‘avoidable’ costs we currently incur to healthcare systems globally.