Ever wondered if a pill will detect diseases for you? Or that you can administer the medicine itself by using an app on your smartphone? You most likely have not. Yet this might become reality in the near future.
SmartTab: precise administering
A smart pill is a pill which contains a drug and sensors that transmit medical data. There are different forms of this ‘smart pill’ in development. One of these variations is the ‘SmartTab’, which is a wirelessly powered capsule that can deliver medication to the precisely targeted position in your body. When the capsule arrives, you will get a notification on your smartphone and all you need to do is press a button in the app and the capsule releases the medicine. This precise targeting to release the medicine leads to better medical results and less side effects.
The SmartTab already has been successfully tested on animals. The next step is to gain FDA-approval and test the product on humans. A short introductory video of the SmartTab can be seen here:
SmartCap: spot cancer
Another very interesting feature in the market of smart pills is the development of the ‘SmartCap’ pill to spot cancer. SmartCap is a new smart capsule that uses artificial intelligence to diagnose gastrointestinal cancers earlier and more precisely than the current possibilities. This pill is able to generate precise location-specific data by using tiny wireless biosensors, resulting in better diagnostic accuracy. The medical data will then be wirelessly transmitted.
Precise and early diagnose is crucial in the treatment of cancer. This gastrointestinal cancer is usually detected when the cancer has become to an advanced stage (about two-third of all findings), which results in low survival rates. By using the SmartCap however, the survival rate of patients is estimated to be almost doubled to 83 percent.
Pill connect: smart pill bottle
Another similar development in the medicine industry is the ‘Pill connect’ smart pill bottle. This bottle is also connected to an app. This app has all the information on frequency and quantity to use, provided by the doctor. The patient receives an alert at the time he or she is supposed to take the medicine. Subsequently, the patient takes the medicines and registers this in the app. This data will then be sent to the Control Centre. After this registration, the pill bottle is actually locked, so that the patient will not be able to take any other pills before he is allowed to take in a new dose. In this way, over-consuming is prevented.
Smart pill market share
So what are the prospects for developing these concepts of the smart pill? First of all, the market for smart pills was valued at $2.5 billion at the end of 2019. Due to the Covid-19 outbreak however, the market is expected to decline to $2.1 billion in 2020, which causes a delay in the development of the pill. Eventually the market will rise up again and is expected to reach a value $2.9 billion in 2023! The biggest restraint in gaining more and more market value for the smart pills is the high costs that are associated with producing the pills.
Concerns
A lot of development and testing will be needed before these smart pills concepts will be available for consumers. Besides the testing, think about the consequences for privacy. All this sensitive medical information is wirelessly transmitted from the body to an app, and then forwarded to a data centre. Before any form of the smart pill can be released, the producer has to guarantee confidentiality of information and a very solid security to prevent hackers from acquiring the medical information, or even worse, gaining access to control the app..
Would you be willing to use one of these concepts of a smart pill? Why, or why not?
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_pill
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200427005365/en/Global-Smart-Pills-Market-2020-2030-COVID-19-Impact
http://www.pharmatimes.com/news/new_smart_pill_technology_reports_100_success_rate_1318667
https://www.mpo-mag.com/contents/view_breaking-news/2020-07-09/new-ai-smart-pill-images-gut-to-spot-cancer/
https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/inno/stories/profiles/2020/02/24/denver-startup-develops-smart-pill-for-wireless.html
This was a really nice read and I appreciated the level of detail at which you wrote about smart pills. This article really shows the potential of technological advancement and the reason why we need to continuously innovate in order to find new use-cases in the social, environmental and economic spheres. As you stated, SmartCap would allow the early discovery of cancer. I think that this would be an incredible advancement while I really hope that it could become accessible to as many people as quickly as possible. I think that the development costs are extremely high and as a consequence the product in itself may be priced with a mark-up. Let’s see what the future holds for this innovation.
Great read!
I think that if this is developed it could change lots of people’s lives. It would revolutionize the whole health industry. You could even think to what extent we will need doctors anymore in the future. If this product is proven to be safe for humans, I believe the FDA should give their approval. This could help to solve SDG 3 and save millions of lives. However my biggest concern is the hackers who could control the app and diffuse fake data to users.
I also really appreciated the fact that you included a youtube video that comes support your article, it helped me understand your blog post better!
Hi Dennis, thanks for the very interesting and insightful post – I really enjoyed learning more about these innovations and know that they are already revolutionizing the medical field. Healthcare is definitely one of the fields that can collect major benefits from these breakthrough technologies and major players such as Google are also taking part in this – I recently read that the tech giant is currently “developing a pill with the aim of detecting cancer, heart attacks and a string of life threatening diseases”. However, I do agree that further development and testing are needed before these technologies are broadly adopted and it is crucial that these are done in a safe and responsible way!