Ingestible Digital Pills
For the first time, the FDA has approved a digital pill — a medication with sensors embedded that tells a doctor if and when a patient takes their medication.
This is a major advancement for both medication adherence and healthcare. An instructor at Harvard Medical School, Ameet Sarpatwari, said the digital pill “has the potential to improve public health,” especially for patients who want to take their medication but often forget.
The first pill with an ingestible sensor approved by the FDA is a version of ABILIFY® (aripiprazole), used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. Current ABILIFY patients who are interested may opt-in to take the digital pill.
After the pill is consumed and reaches the stomach, the sensor will send an electrical signal through the body to a wearable (for ABILIFY, it is a Band-Aid-like patch). The patch must be worn on the left rib cage and replaced after seven days, said Andrew Wright, Otsuka America’s VP for digital medicine.
The patch then sends a wireless message to the app, recording when the dose was taken. Patients are able to consent up to 4 other people, in addition to their doctor, to track their medication adherence. The app used to track this data also allows patients to revoke data access rights from those they’ve shared with.
The intended goal with digital pills is to serve as another method for patient tracking of doses, and to voluntarily share records with their doctors. Adherence of medication and treatment has always been a gray area, as it has been found that about 50% of patients take prescriptions as directed. This has been a major issue for doctors when evaluating medications.
Chief Strategy Officiate at Otsuka, Robert McQuade, said “For the first time, physicians are going to know objectively whether their patients are taking their medications or not, and it really has the potential to make their care significantly better.”
To learn more on the advancements and impact of the digital pill, check out these articles by NY Times and FastCompany.
