An experimental obesity pill is based on the gastric bypass surgery

The drug is based on investigations that Giovanni Traverso, a gastroenterologist and mechanical engineer, and Robert Langer, a chemical engineer who launched more than two dozen biotech companies on which the is carried out.

The two discovered the mechanism when they worked on a way to develop liquid drug formulations that children could be given. They soon found that they were able to make this temporary synthetic coating more or less permeable in order to either improve or slow down the absorption. This latter ability was appealing as the treatment of obesity.

“This material is something that you would take as a capsule or liquid, but the next day it is gone due to the natural sales of our mucosal surface in the GI tract,” says Traverso. He and Langer died Synis in 2022 with Dhanda. He compares this coating with what mussels and other shellfish use to stick to rocks or the sea floor.

In the results announced by Syntis, the medication was delivered directly into the small intestine via a tube, so that the researchers were able to check that the polymer coating was formed as expected. A tablet shape has already been tested in pigs and dogs, and it is what syntis wants to test in future human studies.

In rats, the drug produced a consistent weekly weight loss of 1 percent over a six -week examination period and saved 100 percent of lean muscle mass.

In a first-in-human pilot study with nine participants, the drug was safe with no adverse effects. Tissue samples from the intestine were used to confirm that the coating formed and was also cleared out of the body within 24 hours. The study was not developed to evaluate weight loss, but blood tests showed that after the medicine, the glucose level and the “hunger hormone” threlin were lower, while the leptin levels, an appetite regulatory hormone, were higher.

“When nutrients are later redirected in the intestine, they activate paths that lead to saturations, energy consumption and healthy, sustainable weight loss,” says Dhanda.

The results of Syntis Bio in animals also indicate the weight loss potential of the drug, without affecting muscle mass, one of the concerns about the current GLP-1 medication. While weight loss is generally associated with numerous health advantages, there are, but there are Cultivation Proof That the type of drastic weight loss, which GLP-1 induces, can also lead to a loss of lean muscle mass.

Louis Aronne, a specialist for obese and professor of metabolic research at the Weill-Cornell Medical College, says that GLP-1 is popular, but may not be right for everyone. He predicts that there will be many medications against obesity and treatment in the not too long -term future. “I think the connection of syntis fits perfectly as a treatment that could be used early. It is a kind of things that you could use as first line medication,” he says. Arrone serves as the company’s clinical advisor.

Vladimir Kushnir, professor of medicine and director of bariatric endoscopy at Washington University in St. Louis, which is not involved in Syntis, says that the early pilot data is encouraging, but it is difficult to draw conclusions from such a small study. He assumes that the drug will make people feel fuller, but could also have some of the same side effects as gastric bypass surgery. “I expected some digestive effects such as flatulence and abdominal cramps as well as potentially diarrhea and nausea as soon as it gets into a larger study,” he says.

It is early for this new technology, but if it turns out to be effective, one day it could be an alternative or add-on drug for GLP-1 medication.