Personal Doctor in my Pill
You may remember my article about Swiss experimentation with Microbots and their potential for use in new surgical procedures in the future. Being a technology professional, I’m amazed when we can identify ways to leverage technology to make things smaller or to make smaller things do more. Along those lines, I was fascinated when I browsed my February 2008 issue of MacLife and found an article entitled “Get Ready for the iPill” in the Deep Tech column of the magazine (at the time of this writing, the article was not available on the web). In the article, author Rik Myslewski describes a “typical” Monday morning in 2018, where readers are told that they’ve awakened not feeling so great. Connecting to a futuristic computer, a biometric reading is taken and automatically sends a signal to a pill floating around inside their body to dispense the appropriate medication. They immediately feel better and are able move forward with their day.
Sound like science fiction? Much like the Microbots I described in my previous article, this may not be as far-fetched as it sounds. Philips recently applied for a patent for a remote-controlled pill that contains compartments for medication, electronically controlled release valves that can be operated via a timer or radio control, and a Radio-Frequency IDentification (RFID) chip for inventory tracking. The pill is a revolutionary step beyond existing time-released pills because they can be tailored to a patient’s specific body chemistry, releasing medication according to their body’s ability to absorb it. The pill’s unique properties don’t stop there, however.
The pill will also be capable of controlled release via remote radio control by doctors, such that medications distributed in a hospital, for example, will no longer require disturbing a patient’s sleep — doctors can simply press a button to release the appropriate amount of medication. Further, the pills can adopt to environmental factors as well, capable of perhaps determining pollen levels in the body and adjusting dosages of an antihistamine or other allergy medication based on those parameters. And one of the main objectives of Philips is to make the pill cheap and disposable, such that there won’t be any need to “recover” a used capsule.
Is there any downside to such a pill? I’d be curious to know what the pill is made of…and what kind of complications could result in taking the pill. Since this is a medical device, and not necessarily a new medication, how would something like this be regulated by the FDA? Would clinical trials be required before they could be distributed to the general public, and if so, how would you conduct such a trial? What would happen if the pill fails? Does it prevent any of the medicine from being dispensed? Does it alert the user that something is wrong? Once it’s in your system it’s clear that it can be controlled, but what kind of failsafe mechanisms are in place to prevent harm to the patient?
These types of pills would likely be a godsend to the groups that need to take a cocktail of medicines to stay alive, or at least lead a normal life. Cancer patients, AIDS sufferers, the elderly, and any number of other groups would benefit from the ability to take one or two pills a day that would handle the guesswork of what medicine needs to be taken when. And the cocktail could also be fine-tuned to their specific needs and environmental factors, distributing only as much medication as the patient might need. I would have considered such a pill for us after our son was released from the hospital with his second bout of RSV, though it in reality it wouldn’t have been practical because of his age at the time. He was on a number of medications that had different requirements for their dispensation, and we had to actually create a spreadsheet in order to keep track of them. The precision of a robotic pill would certainly mitigate the human error that could occur when so many dosages need to be tracked.
But, as with any technology, the risks need to be considered as well, and when dealing with human health, the consequences could be far more serious than the failure of a new piece of software to deliver on its promised functionality. Would you be willing to take such a pill that could regulate all your medications for you? Would any risk of failure of the device be acceptable to you?
