Edible Biosensors Provide Data In Real Time

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Proteus Digital Health has developed Helius, an edible biosensor which reacts with stomach acid allowing, “Clinicians, patients, and families (to) use the real-time information about medication-taking, rest, and activity to make informed treatment decisions. This helps people stay on track with their daily care and keeps healthcare costs under control.”

Proteus lists ways Helius can “help people throughout their treatment journey” as follows:

• At the doctor’s: Helius can optimize a patient’s care by providing their doctor unprecedented insight into medication-taking patterns and how the body is responding to therapy.
• Going home: Helius helps people successfully manage the transition to home, alerting doctors when someone needs a little extra support.
• At home: When people are working to manage daily care, Helius ensures they stay connected with their families and on-track each day.

According to Allied Health World, the edible biosensor is an intelligent pill that has “sensors imbedded, which include copper and magnesium, allowing the two metals to create an electric charge - as in a school experiment with potato batteries. An electrical current to power the device is generated by stomach acid.”

Allied Health World continues, “This signal is transmitted to a patch that is placed on the skin of a patient. This patch can monitor the use of medication as well as heart rate, temperature, and respiration. For people who are worried about swallowing a sensor to monitor their health, it is about the size of a grain of sand. The currents generated to power the sensor are not likely to harm the human body, and most of the product is composed of materials found in food. The patch that helps collect the information is like those used for electrocardiogram machines that monitor heat rate through electric currents. Patches are designed to be worn for seven days before they need to be disposed of and replaced with a new one.”

The edible medical technology allows doctors to get real time data that measures interactions between prescription medicines a patient is taking while they happen. This could help a physician recognize when a dosage or medication needs to be changed and prevent any adverse reactions before they happen.

If a patient chooses, the data about prescriptions ingested can be shared with caregivers via smartphone which could be especially helpful for elderly patients who forget their medication or cannot differentiate between multiple medications and take the wrong one at the wrong time.

MedCity News notes Proteus is not alone in developing edible biosensors. Carnegie Mellon University is working on biosensors that could be in the body for as little as one meal and others that would stay in the small intestine for an extended period of time. These sensors would monitor gastric problems and report accurate core temperature. One sensor could be used to determine if cancer treating drugs were being effectively delivered in the body. All of these reports would help doctors keep track of important information and better care for patients, as well as saving valuable time by giving real time data.