Digipill?

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just accepted an application of the world’s very first “digital pill“

The new ‘digipill’ contains a microchip and is capable of transmitting different kinds of information to the users’ smartphones.

Could this be the future of ‘smart medicine’?

The tablet is equipped with a ingestible sensor which sends information that the drug has been taken after it’s reached one’s stomach. Data is sent to a wearable patch, which is able to forward it to patient’s smartphone or right to his doctor. It is especially important for the treatment of memory disorders, such as Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia and other diseases. 

“If you have an elderly person on a clinical trial and you ask her to take a pill for three months you cannot be sure that she has taken it every day. She might not admit it if she hasn’t because she doesn’t want to get in trouble with the doctor,” Trevor Jones, a UK pharmaceuticals industry veteran and expert in clinical trials, commented to the Financial Times.

‘Digital Pill’ Submitted To FDA for Approval