(Press-News.org) CAMBRIDGE, MA -- For many patients with schizophrenia, other psychiatric illnesses, or diseases such as hypertension and asthma, it can be difficult to take their medicine every day. To help overcome that challenge, MIT researchers have developed a pill that can be taken just once a week and gradually releases medication from within the stomach.
In a phase 3 clinical trial conducted by MIT spinout Lyndra Therapeutics, the researchers used the once-a-week pill to deliver a widely used medication for managing the symptoms of schizophrenia. They found that this treatment regimen maintained consistent levels of the drug in patients’ bodies and controlled their symptoms just as well as daily doses of the drug. The results are published today in Lancet Psychiatry.
“We’ve converted something that has to be taken once a day to once a week, orally, using a technology that can be adapted for a variety of medications,” says Giovanni Traverso, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, an associate member of the Broad Institute, and an author of the study. “The ability to provide a sustained level of drug for a prolonged period, in an easy-to-administer system, makes it easier to ensure patients are receiving their medication.”
Traverso’s lab began developing the ingestible capsule studied in this trial more than 10 years ago, as part of an ongoing effort to make medications easier for patients to take. The capsule is about the size of a multivitamin, and once swallowed, it expands into a star shape that helps it remain in the stomach until all of the drug is released.
Richard Scranton, chief medical officer of Lyndra Therapeutics, is the senior author of the paper, and Leslie Citrome, a clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at New York Medical College School of Medicine, is the lead author. Nayana Nagaraj, medical director at Lyndra Therapeutics, and Todd Dumas, senior director of pharmacometrics at Certara, are also authors.
Sustained delivery
Over the past decade, Traverso’s lab has been working on a variety of capsules that can be swallowed and remain in the digestive tract for days or weeks, slowly releasing their drug payload. In 2016, his team reported the star-shaped device, which was then further developed by Lyndra for clinical trials in patients with schizophrenia.
The device contains six arms that can be folded in, allowing it to fit inside a capsule. The capsule dissolves when the device reaches the stomach, allowing the arms to spring out. Once the arms are extended, the device becomes too large to pass through the pylorus (the exit of the stomach), so it remains freely floating in the stomach as drugs are slowly released from the arms. After about a week, the arms break off on their own, and each segment exits the stomach and passes through the digestive tract.
For the clinical trials, the capsule was loaded with risperidone, a commonly prescribed medication used to treat schizophrenia. Most patients take the drug orally once a day. There are also injectable versions that can be given every two weeks, every month, or every two months, but they require administration by a health care provider and are not always acceptable to patients.
The MIT and Lyndra team chose to focus on schizophrenia in hopes that a drug regimen that could be administered less frequently, through oral delivery, could make treatment easier for patients and their caregivers.
“One of the areas of unmet need that was recognized early on is neuropsychiatric conditions, where the illness can limit or impair one’s ability to remember to take their medication,” Traverso says. “With that in mind, one of the conditions that has been a big focus has been schizophrenia.”
The phase 3 trial was coordinated by researchers at Lyndra and enrolled 83 patients at five different sites around the United States. Forty-five of those patients completed the full five weeks of the study, in which they took one risperidone-loaded capsule per week.
Throughout the study, the researchers measured the amount of drug in each patient’s bloodstream. Each week, they found a sharp increase on the day the pill was given, followed by a slow decline over the next week. The levels were all within the optimal range, and there was less variation over time than is seen when patients take a pill each day.
Effective treatment
Using an evaluation known as the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), the researchers also found that the patients’ symptoms remained stable throughout the study.
“One of the biggest obstacles in the care of people with chronic illnesses in general is that medications are not taken consistently. This leads to worsening symptoms, and in the case of schizophrenia, potential relapse and hospitalization,” Citrome says. “Having the option to take medication by mouth once a week represents an important option that can assist with adherence for the many patients who would prefer oral medications versus injectable formulations.”
Side effects from the treatment were minimal, the researchers found. Some patients experienced mild acid reflux and constipation early in the study, but these did not last long. The results, showing effectiveness of the capsule and few side effects, represent a major milestone in this approach to drug delivery, Traverso says.
“This really demonstrates that what we had hypothesized a decade ago, which is that a single capsule providing a drug depot within the GI tract could be possible,” he says. “Here what you see is that the capsule can achieve the drug levels that were predicted, and also control symptoms in a sizeable cohort of patients with schizophrenia.”
The investigators now hope to do larger phase 3 studies before applying for FDA approval of this delivery approach for risperidone. They are also preparing for phase 1 trials using this capsule to deliver other drugs, including contraceptives.
“We are delighted that this technology which started at MIT has reached the point of phase 3 clinical trials,” says Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT, who was an author of the original study on the star capsule and is a co-founder of Lyndra Therapeutics.
###
The research was funded by Lyndra Therapeutics.
END
Once-a-week pill for schizophrenia shows promise in clinical trials
The ingestible capsule forms a drug depot in the stomach, gradually releasing its payload and eliminating the need for patients to take medicine every day.
2025-06-10
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Menstrual tracking app data is a ‘gold mine’ for advertisers that risks women’s safety – report
2025-06-10
Smartphone apps that track menstrual cycles are a “gold mine” for consumer profiling, collecting information on everything from exercise, diet and medication to sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use, according to a University of Cambridge report.
A report from Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy argues that the financial worth of this data is “vastly underestimated” by users who supply profit-driven companies with highly intimate details in a market lacking in regulation.
The report’s authors caution that cycle tracking app (CTA) ...
Sensory impairment, not just memory tests, is vital for our understanding of dementia
2025-06-10
Memory problems have long been considered the primary hallmark of dementia, but a team of researchers is now challenging this view. They argue that changes in sensory perception – from vision to balance – may be equally important indicators that many healthcare providers are currently missing.
According to experts, current approaches to the care and support of people with dementia need an overhaul, relying too heavily on the assessment of memory functions, when the condition also impairs taste, touch, balance, hearing, or vision.
Professor Andrea Tales, Professor of Dementia ...
Intensive weight loss programme improves eating disorder symptoms in people with Type 2 Diabetes at risk of eating disorders, Oxford study finds
2025-06-10
An intensive low-energy diet programme, similar to the NHS Type 2 Diabetes Path to Remission, significantly improved eating disorder symptoms in people with type 2 diabetes and excess weight who were at risk of developing eating disorders, according to a University of Oxford study published today in The Lancet Psychiatry.
Participants enrolled in a total diet replacement (TDR) programme experienced significant improvements in eating disorder symptoms which persisted six months after the programme finished when participants had regained some weight. This directly addresses a research gap highlighted by recent National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance on the use of ...
Pointing to success: Marathon potential is in your hands – literally
2025-06-10
Whether it’s a personal challenge, for charity, or on your bucket list, marathons are one of the most sought-after goals for amateur and recreational runners worldwide.
Now, a world-first study from the University of South Australia and the University of North Dakota suggests that a person’s marathon potential may be identified through a simple check of their hands.
In a meta-analysis of 22 studies (representing 5293 participants and 12 countries) researchers found that a lower digit ratio – when a person’s ring finger is longer than their index finger – is a biomarker of cardiorespiratory fitness, ...
SwRI-led PUNCH mission images huge solar eruption
2025-06-10
SAN ANTONIO — June 10, 2025 — Southwest Research Institute’s Dr. Craig DeForest discussed the latest accomplishments of NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission during a media event at the 246th American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. As the spacecraft constellation completes commissioning, early PUNCH data showed coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, as they erupted from the Sun and traveled across the inner solar system.
“These preliminary movies show that PUNCH can actually track space weather across ...
Why common climate messaging often backfires – and how to fix it
2025-06-10
In brief:
Climate behavior gap: Most Americans overrate the climate impact of actions like recycling and underrate high-impact choices like skipping long flights or eating less meat, a new study finds.
Spillover risk: Interventions that focus only on personal behavior can reduce willingness to engage in collective climate action, such as voting or protesting.
What works: Active learning boosts climate literacy and commitment to impactful lifestyle changes – but must be paired with strategies that also support collective action.
Many Americans misjudge which personal behaviors have the biggest impact ...
New study offers detailed look at winter flooding in California’s central valley
2025-06-10
California’s Central Valley — one of the nation's most critical agricultural regions and home to over 1.3 million people — is prone to flooding. Mapping the extent of winter floods has been challenging for experts, however, because clouds can obscure the view of satellites. Recent efforts to improve satellite flood mapping have been incorporated into a new study that offers insight into where winter flooding is occurring and inform how floodwaters can be used to replenish depleted aquifers.
The research, published June 4 in ...
Rice University students win top prize in global design contest with cutting-edge haptic wristband
2025-06-10
Rice University student engineers have earned top international honors for a novel device that could redefine how humans interact with virtual environments. Their project, a wearable haptic wristband, claimed first place in the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS) Student Design Competition held in London May 27.
The team, known as WRIST (short for Wearable Radial Interface for Sensory hapTic feedback),includes students from mechanical engineering and electrical and computer engineering. Their winning ...
A repurposed FDA-approved drug shows promise in killing antibiotic resistant bacteria
2025-06-10
A new study from Emory University addresses the growing global crisis of antibiotic-resistant infections. Many of these drug-resistant bacteria are spread through hospitals, and there are few antibiotics available for treatment.
The study, published in PNAS, looks at a particular bacterium called Acinetobacter baumannii, which is highly infectious, spread mostly in hospitals and typically infects immunocompromised patients. The researchers employed an entirely new strategy to identify weaknesses specific to resistant bacteria and then target these weaknesses with an alternate drug. They found that fendiline, a drug that acts as a calcium channel blocker and ...
How youth teach environmental educators through intergenerational learning
2025-06-10
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — How educators acquire and implement learnings from their students can play a critical role in environmental education, according to a new study from researchers in the Penn State Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management.
The researchers found a role reversal between teachers and students, as environmental educators reported improvement in teaching and leadership skills after learning from the existing knowledge and experiences of students in an environmental education program, demonstrating ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
From blood sugar to brain relief: GLP-1 therapy slashes migraine frequency
Variability in heart rate during sleep may reveal early signs of stroke, depression or cognitive dysfunction, new study shows
New method to study catalysts could lead to better batteries
Current Molecular Pharmacology impact factor rises to 2.9, achieving Q2 ranking in the Pharmacology & Pharmacy category in 2024 JCR
More time with loved ones for cancer patients spared radiation treatment
New methods speed diagnosis of rare genetic disease
Genetics of cardiomyopathy risk in cancer survivors differ by age of onset
Autism inpatient collection releases genetic, phenotypic data for more than 1,500 children with autism
Targeting fusion protein’s role in childhood leukemia produces striking results
Clear understanding of social connections propels strivers up the social ladder
New research reveals why acute and chronic pain are so different – and what might make pain last
Stable cooling fostered life, rapid warming brought death: scientists use high-resolution fusuline data reveal evolutionary responses to cooling and warming
New research casts doubt on ancient drying of northern Africa’s climate
Study identifies umbilical cord blood biomarkers of early onset sepsis in preterm newborns
AI development: seeking consistency in logical structures
Want better sleep for your tween? Start with their screens
Cancer burden in neighborhoods with greater racial diversity and environmental burden
Alzheimer disease in breast cancer survivors
New method revolutionizes beta-blocker production process
Mechanism behind life-threatening cancer drug side-effect revealed
Weighted vests might help older adults meet weight loss goals, but solution for corresponding bone loss still elusive
Scientists find new way to predict how bowel cancer drugs will stop working – paving the way for smarter treatments
Breast cancer patients’ microbiome may hold key to avoiding damaging heart side-effects of cancer therapies
Exercise-induced protein revives aging muscles and bones
American College of Cardiology issues guidance on weight management drugs
Understanding the effect of bedding on thermal insulation during sleep
Cosmic signal from the very early universe will help astronomers detect the first stars
With AI, researchers find increasing immune evasion in H5N1
Study finds hidden effects of wildfires on water systems
Airborne fungal spores may help predict COVID-19 & flu surges
[Press-News.org] Once-a-week pill for schizophrenia shows promise in clinical trialsThe ingestible capsule forms a drug depot in the stomach, gradually releasing its payload and eliminating the need for patients to take medicine every day.