Digital pill

A digital pill is a pharmaceutical dosage form that contains an ingestible sensor inside of a pill.[1] The sensor begins transmitting medical data after it is consumed. The technology that makes up the pill, as well as the data transmitted by the pill's sensor, are considered to be part of digital medicine. The purpose of the sensor is to determine whether the person is taking their medication or not (called "adherence"). There are privacy concerns with respect to who receives the data and what is done with it.[2][3]

The first digital pill to be approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration, a version of aripiprazole (Abilify) manufactured by Otsuka Pharmaceutical, was approved in November 2017.[4][5] This digital pill's sensor, developed by Proteus Digital Health, is activated by acid in the stomach, and generates an electrical signal that is picked up by a patch worn on the ribcage; the patch in turn forwards information to a smartphone app.[4] The drug is taken by people with schizophrenia. People with the condition tend to have problems with adherence, and the digital pill could help with that; however some people with schizophernia have paranoia which the digital pill could make worse.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Batra, S; Baker, RA; Wang, T; Forma, F; DiBiasi, F; Peters-Strickland, T (2017). "Digital health technology for use in patients with serious mental illness: a systematic review of the literature". Medical devices (Auckland, N.Z.). 10: 237–251. doi:10.2147/MDER.S144158. PMC 5633292. PMID 29042823.
  2. 1 2 Wamsley, Laurel (November 14, 2017). "FDA Approves First Digital Pill That Can Track Whether You've Taken It". NPR.
  3. ↑ Lee, Bruce Y. "FDA Approves First Digital Pill That You (And Others) Can Track". Forbes.
  4. 1 2 Belluck, Pam (2017-11-13). "First Digital Pill Approved to Worries About Biomedical 'Big Brother'". The New York Times.
  5. ↑ "Press Announcements - FDA approves pill with sensor that digitally tracks if patients have ingested their medication". FDA. November 13, 2017.
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