Villi Inspired Mechanical Interlocking for Intestinal Retentive Devices

Intestinal retentive devices have applications ranging from sustained oral drug delivery systems to indwelling ingestible medical devices. Current strategies to retain devices in the small intestine primarily focus on chemical anchoring using mucoadhesives or mechanical coupling using expandable devices or structures that pierce the intestinal epithelium. Here, the feasibility of intestinal retention using devices containing villi‐inspired structures that mechanically interlock with natural villi of the small intestine is evaluated. First the viability of mechanical interlocking as an intestinal retention strategy is estimated by estimating the resistance to peristaltic shear between simulated natural villi and devices with various micropost geometries and parameters. Simulations are validated in vitro by fabricating micropost array patches via multistep replica molding and performing lap‐shear tests to evaluate the interlocking performance of the fabricated microposts with artificial villi. Finally, the optimal material and design parameters of the patches that can successfully achieve retention in vivo are predicted. This study represents a proof‐of‐concept for the viability of micropost‐villi mechanical interlocking strategy to develop nonpenetrative multifunctional intestinal retentive devices for the future.