Allurion Technologies of Mass creating a WEIGHT LOSS "PILL?"

A local Massachusetts company is creating a swallowable weight loss device:  a pill encasing a hydrogel substance that E X P A N D S in your stomach and creates a sense of satiety.  

Wh-what?  I am MORE than intrigued with this possibilty.  There are various nutritional products on the market that claim satiety with fullness (What up ROCA LABS?) but a long-term solution from a "device?"  

That product is a large, but swallowable, pill carrying a super-porous hydrogel to the stomach. The material can expand 200 to 300 times its size, though Allurion’s won’t hit that size. When the treatment is done, the material would be dissolved via an oral solution.

So long as it's not diaper filling, I am very interested to know more.  Article below --

Via - Boston Herald

Wellesley startup Allurion Technologies is developing a medical device to make treating obesity easier to swallow — a pill that delivers a substance that “grows” in your stomach to make you feel full.

“We take the endoscopic procedure out of the equation,” said Allurion CEO Jonathan Wecker. “We have a medical device that fits in a pill and expands in the stomach over several months.”

Allurion, which was founded in 2009 by a pair of Harvard Medical School students, just landed a $750,000 “accelerator” loan from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center to help the four-employee company conduct trials and studies for their product, an alternative to surgery.

That product is a large, but swallowable, pill carrying a super-porous hydrogel to the stomach. The material can expand 200 to 300 times its size, though Allurion’s won’t hit that size. When the treatment is done, the material would be dissolved via an oral solution.

“Because it’s cheaper and less invasive, we think our device will be accessible to people less overweight than required to qualify for other procedures like lap band,” Wecker said. “The market for moderately obese and obese people would be tens of billions worldwide.”

And the material doesn’t just sit there — it pushes up against the walls of your stomach to increase your feeling of “satiety,” Wecker said.

“You really don’t feel it,” he said. “Inside the stomach, we don’t have the same receptors we have on the skin. You’ll feel a sense it’s there, especially in the first week or two, but not an overarching sense.”

Wecker said the process to get approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is typically two to three years.

“The development is cheaper, since we’re a medical device company and not a pharmaceutical,” he said. “The amount of money required to get to market is tens of millions, not hundreds of millions.”

Susan Windham-Bannister, CEO of the Life Sciences Center, said the loans are intended to help companies in the capital intensive industry that need less than $1 million get to the point where they can to attract tens of millions in funding.

“If they can hit a few milestones, it makes them more attractive to private investors,” she said.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/technology/general/view.bg?articleid=1392542