From Lab to Life: An End to Insulin Needles?

Approximately 150 million to 200 million people worldwide are   dependent on insulin therapy for their health. This population includes all people with Type 1 diabetes and a significant, growing number of people with Type 2 diabetes who require insulin to manage their condition.

(Note:  Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition where the pancreas produces little to no insulin, mostly in children or young adults. Type 2 diabetes involves insulin resistance, where the body does not use insulin effectively, often developing over time in adults due to lifestyle factors).

Apart from the obvious challenge of daily self-injections, in the US there is a cost factor.  Informed sources note that “…Insulin costs in the U.S. are significantly higher than other countries, with average manufacturer prices around $98.70 per vial, often 10 times higher than international counterparts.”  And 27 million Americans, as of 2024, did not have health insurance of any kind.

In a cover article in Science Translational Medicine,  lead author Asst. Prof. Shadi Farah, Technion Chemical Engineering faculty, describes a breakthrough finding: A biological implant of engineered cells able to produce insulin and protected from the body’s immune system that normally would reject them.*

• Bochenek, M. A., Farah, S., Doloff, J. C., Han, H. J., Sadraei, A., Jeang, W. J., … & Anderson, D. G. (2026). Crystallized colony-stimulating factor-1 receptor inhibitor protects immunoisolated allo but not xeno transplants in primates. Science Translational Medicine, 18(834), eadt1055.

Farah heads the Farah Laboratory for Advanced Functional/Medicinal Polymers and Smart Drug Delivery Technologies.  The research was conducted together with scientists at MIT, Johns Hopkins and Harvard.   The technology of engineering cells and implanting them could be a breakthrough technology for drug delivery in future – not solely for diabetes sufferers. Prof. Farah’s lab has a significant number of brilliant young scientists from Israeli’s minority Arab population.

Technion reports: “The implant, which serves as an autonomous artificial pancreas, functions as a “living medicine” and works well over time thanks to protection based on engineered crystals developed by Dr. Farah’s team. After being implanted in the body, the implant operates without any need for additional external intervention, thanks to long-term crystalline protection. It continuously monitors glucose levels, produces insulin and releases the required amount at the exact time – a kind of autonomous system, or in Dr. Farah’s words – “a factory for manufacturing drugs inside the body”.

One day, perhaps, instead of popping pills, we will have implants, little drug factories, that make precisely the medicine we need, in the right amounts.  Global Big Pharma has annual revenues of $1.7 trillion!   With profit margins of 13-15%.  It is high time we put Big Pharma on a diet.  Shadi Farah and team may show us the way.