The FDA has approved the first pill with an embedded ingestible sensor that can track when, or if, a patient takes their medication. The sensor will be used with the drug Abilify MyCite—which is prescribed to treat schizophrenia, bi-polar disorders and depression—and automatically shares data with doctors, caregivers, family members or anyone else the patient has pre-approved.
The sensor attempts to solve the problem of nonadherence. As it turns out, millions of patients don’t take their medications as prescribed, which leads to poor therapeutic outcomes and costs billions per year in avoidable health care costs. Ameet Sarpatwari, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School, said for The New York Times that the digital pill “has the potential to improve public health,” especially for patients who want to take their medication but forget.
On the flip side, the constant monitoring may actually increase mistrust or make patients feel uncomfortable. Dr. Peter Kramer, a psychiatrist referred to the drug as “packaging a medication with a tattletale.”
Here’s how the ingestible sensor works with the drug. The sensor is the size of a “grain of sand” and is embedded within the pill at the point of manufacture. In addition to taking the pill, the patients are also required to wear a patch on their skin, which acts as an external…
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