Novartis Invests 24 Million with Proteus – Chip On A Pill Also Known as IMeds as Discussed at TEDMED

If you have not take a look at this technology, it is almost scary to a degree.  I talk a lot about medical devices that report data here as this is the direction much of data input is moving with healthcare.  Novartis is continuing with investing with Proteus to have a chip on pill that will report data.  The technology is called “ChipSkin”.  How does this work, you swallow your pill and your pill starts talking and sending information.  The information from the pill goes to a patch or a tiny device implanted under your skin and will send your heart and respiratory rates.  The company states this is inexpensive to produce.  In a couple prior posts, I covered a bit about how the Raisin system works. 

Wireless Healthcare Medical Devices and the FDA – The Reasons They Are Slow to Come to Terms

Wearable Sensors and Other Healthcare Innovations Set to Flourish

The second part of this is the “Raisin” program which looks at the body’s response to medications and the primary target here is to involve this technology with treating chronic diseases.  Obviously Novartis sees a future here with not only securing information but also being able to monitor patient compliance with taking medications, no pill taken, no information to put it simply.  In a related article, TEDMED predicted that IMeds at some point in time will be bigger than ITunes.  As I keep saying, technology and clinical healthcare today are tied at the hip and will continue to grow.  Novartis is known for but not limited to drugs for cardiology, oncology and infections disease drugs. 

One drug in particular of interest to me from Novartis is their Bio identical patch for hormone replacement therapy called Vivelle.  Could the patch be “Raisin” activated too? 

This is a big topic today with bioidentical being said to be a  safer alternative than Premarin which is made from horses urine, but do you think we can get anyone to crunch some numbers, well let me put it this way, I have posted about this many times and through insurance companies and the FDA, we can’t seem to even get an ear on this to my disappointment and Dr. Erika Schwartz and I had a great conversation about this topic.

FDA Approved Bio Identical HRT Versus Premarin and Cancer – Where’s the Numbers FDA and Pharma?

Who knows exactly what direction all of this is going with technology and will my FDA approved Bioidentical hormone patch contain a chip one day?  If consumer participation is needed here, again we need some numbers on safety too.  The women’s health initiative failed to separate bioidentical and Premarin drugs.   

At any rate, Novartis sees a future with combining communication, pills, patches, etc. to allow for compliance and the status of several of our vitals and reporting back on how medication works with our bodies.  BD 

Novartis (NVS) is ramping up its commitment to personalized medicine with a $24 million investment in Proteus Biomedical, a pioneer of high-tech pills featuring embedded ingestible sensors. Smart pills are a hot technology in the never-ending quest to improve drug delivery in novel, profitable ways.
Tiny but sophisticated, Proteus' design can both monitor a patient's vital signs and track compliance with prescription drug regimens. The pills transmit information to a microelectronic receiver worn either as a skin patch or implanted under the skin.

Novartis Invests Wisely in Smart Pill -- Seeking Alpha

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