Sensor-enabled pills: providing doctors with better insights
Proteus Discover is changing the way doctors and patients gain information to deal with complex and chronic conditions. Using a sensor-embedded pill and a patch placed on your body, Proteus Discover hope to provide better insights for the patient as well as the healthcare professionals involved. Thus enabling them to provide specific treatment that suits the patient.
Together with the regular medication prescribed, the healthcare professional will also prescribe sensor-enabled pills. These pills contain an ingestible sensor the size of a grain of rice. Once the sensor-enabled pill reaches your stomach, it sends a signal to the Patch that the patient is wearing on their body. The sensor-containing Patch will monitor when the patient swallows each sensor-enabled pill, as well as the rest and activity patterns of the patient. The Patch will record all the information and relay it to both the patient and the healthcare professional. Patients can then use the Discover app to keep track of the medication, and set up medication reminders. Patients can also monitor their activity levels including steps they have taken, rest levels, heart rate, blood pressure and weight. Healthcare professionals can use the Discover portal to monitor the patient and provide the best treatment plan for the patient.
“We are at a cusp, a pivot point, not just for the pharmaceutical industries, but also the way organisations like the NHS think about the way they deliver care as well,” Proteus’ Barnaby Poulton told the Digital Health Works II audience in London.
Proteus’ new sensor pills are able to create unique collaborations between patients and doctors as they provide objective insight into numerous factors, primarily how patients actually take their medications.
The sensor itself is composed of small amounts of copper, silicon, and magnesium – the amount you might find in oily fish or a banana. Upon ingesting the pill, a signal is picked up by a plaster worn by the patients which timestamps when the medication was taken before the sensor dissolves.
The patch worn by the patient is also able to record patient’s blood pressure, heart rate as well as their activity levels including step count.
Earlier this month the company marked a key milestone when US regulator the FDA accepted its joint new drug application with Tokyo-based Otsuka Pharmaceuticals.
The companies submitted for approval a sensor-enabled version of Otsuka’s Abilify (aripriprazole), a treatment for patients with schizophrenia, bi-polar and other mental health disorders.
Poulton said: “The new digital medication takes what takes place inside a clinical trial, which is a very controlled environment, and translates those results into the real world.
for more details visit: http://www.proteus.com/