01.08
USA Today’s Edward C. Baig writes the following about Proteus in his Personal Tech column today.
One of the most intriguing technologies comes from Proteus Biomedical in Redwood City, Calif. The company can add an ingestible microchip to a capsule or tablet, without altering the medicine. It’s made of food ingredients.
When you swallow the pill, it becomes electronically active and can send a signal through your body that looks like an EKG. It can be detected by a special, small bandage that might transmit data to a cellphone. Qualcomm is helping connect the special bandage to 3G phone networks. Caregivers or relatives will know when and what pills patients have taken or if the patients failed to take their medications.
The technology is in human trials. “We believe we have figured out a way for us to bring this to market with a wide variety of pharmaceutical products,” perhaps by 2011 or 2012, says Proteus CEO Andy Thompson. Cost: fractions of a penny per pill.
Read the entire column here. Better yet, pick up a copy of today’s newspaper.
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