New innovation at GA Tech may mean an alternative to injectable medications

Certain medications, like insulin or semaglutide, require injections for use — which can be invasive, expensive and less accessible. In some cases, these barriers can leave patients to rely on subpar alternatives for chronic illnesses.

Engineers at Georgia Tech are trying to face this problem head-on with an oral capsule aimed to create an alternative to needles — replacing painful injections.

“Physicians will often be hesitant to move patients to those more effective injectable therapies because they don’t have confidence that the patients could be able to do it well and it’s too complicated, and so they stay on the oral medications because they know the patient could do that,” Dr. Mark Prausnitz, a professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech, told The Atlanta Jou