PROLONGED TRANSIT TIME OF PERMEABILITY-ENHANCING DRUG ELUTING PILL

摘要

Apparatus is provided for drug administration. The apparatus includes an ingestible capsule (30), which includes a drug (36), stored by the capsule (30). The apparatus also includes an environmentally-sensitive mechanism, adapted to change a state thereof responsively to a disposition of the capsule (30) within a gastrointestinal (GI) tract of a subject; one or more drug-passage facilitation electrodes (16); and a control component (14), adapted to facilitate passage of the drug (36), in response to a change of state of the environmentally-sensitive mechanism, by driving the drug-passage facilitation electrodes (16) to apply an electrical current. The apparatus further includes a velocity-reduction element adapted to reduce a velocity of the capsule (30) through the GI tract for at least a portion of the time that the control component (14) is facilitating the passage of the drug (36). Additional embodiments are also described.