Scientific developers in the US have produced what are being called ‘digital pills’, which would be connected to microchips and allow doctors to monitor whether their patients are taking their medications as prescribed.
Both the European Medicine Authority (EMA) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have recently approved the use of the digestible microchips, which are embedded in drugs, following studies showing their safety and efficacy when implanted in placebo pills.
The tiny devices have been made by Proteus Digital Health, in Redwood City, California and have been hailed by medical and scientific experts as a means of enhancing the efficacy of medical treatments.
Eric Topol, the director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in California and author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine, said that the sand-particle sized sensor, containing trace amounts of magnesium and copper, hold tremendous potential for the future.
“About half of all people don’t take medications like they’re supposed to,” he said. “This device could be a solution to that problem, so that doctors can know when to rev up a patient’s medication adherence.”
The magnesium and copper inside the chips would generate a slight voltage when in contact with digestive juices and would send a signal to a microchip embedded in a person’s skin, which would then relay information to their healthcare provider.
Proteus’s George Savage explained, “The point is not for doctors to castigate people, but to understand how people are responding to their treatments. This way doctors can prescribe a different dose or a different medicine if they learn that it’s not being taken appropriately.”
http://www.kirkhamyoung.co.uk/news/article/digital-pills-receive-european-and-us-approvals-185108.html
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