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| Ingestible chips, like these made by Proteus Biomedical, enter the body and send data to smartphones, 01/17/12. (photo: Michael Sugrue/Proteus) |
17 January 12
Pharmacy to sell edible microchips that will alert doctors if patients are not taking right medicines.
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American biomedical company has signed up with a British healthcare
firm to sell digestible sensors, each smaller than a grain of sand, that
can trigger the transmission of medical information from a patient's
body to the mobile phone of a relative or carer.
The aim is to develop a suite of "intelligent
medicines" that can help patients and their carers keep track of which
pills are taken at what time of day, in order to ensure that complex
regimes of drugs are given the best possible chance of working
effectively.
Ultimately, the plan is for every one of the many
pills taken each day by some of the most chronically-ill patients,
especially those with mental health problems, to be digitally
time-stamped as they are digested within the body.
The healthcare company Lloyds- pharmacy said it
intends to sell the edible microchips of Proteus Biomedical of
California by the end of the year, as part of a trial to test whether
NHS patients would be prepared to pay privately to ensure that they or
their relatives take the right medicines at the right time. READ MORE
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