Before the use of smart pills becomes more mainstream, a researcher at the University of Illinois Chicago is urging caution.

Pills equipped with tiny sensors, or so-called smart pills, are slowly making their way into the U.S. healthcare system.

Earlier this month Otsuka America Pharmaceutical Inc., a division of Otsuka Holdings Co. in Tokyo and a large international drug maker with annual sales in excess of $11 billion, has signed an agreement with Magellan Health, a for-profit managed healthcare company focused on behavioral healthcare and based in Scottsdale, Arizona, to begin distribution of a medication for treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

The drug, known as Aripiprazole, will be a tablet embedded with an ingestible sensor and used in conjunction with a patch and downloadable app to help patients take their medication for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder on time and in the correct dose.

But before the use of smart pills becomes more mainstream, a researcher at the University of Illinois Chicago is urging caution. Smart pills, or digital pills, are prescription medications equipped with edible electronic sensors that send wireless messages to devices, like patches and smartphones or tablets, outside the body when they are ingested. The first of its kind, which is used to treat patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder, was approved for use in humans by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2017.

Some healthcare analysts believe the technology will help patients and doctors track drug regimen compliance and increase patient adherence, which estimates show may save between $100 and $300 billion annually in the U.S. Others have concerns about patient privacy, consent and data sharing.

“We need to know if smart pills are going to actually improve patients’ lives, which is much more complicated than compliance or privacy,” says clinical associate professor of biomedical and health information sciences in the UIC College of Applied Health Sciences Eric Swirsky. “It is naive to think that this type of surveilled compliance with provider-recommended drug treatments will function like a magic pill. More likely, it will just challenge the ingenuity of patients.”

There is simply no evidence yet to suggest smart pills benefit patients and that using the technology outside of clinical trials “flies in the face of the research we do currently have, which shows that patients benefit by receiving care from providers who can manage the many issues around adherence,” he says.

Smart pills are a dangerous reduction of the provider-patient relationship, and there is no shortcut to improving patient adherence, which happens in a larger framework of home, work and clinical environments, not to mention perceptions and emotions, Swirsky says. “This technology dumbs down an issue that is often very complex in the hopes of quickly solving an expensive medical challenge.”

For example, the first FDA-approved smart pill is being used in patients with schizophrenia, who often suffer from paranoia about being surveilled and distrust of medication or care providers. But the the intent to improve medication adherence in this group of patients is understandable, given that many patients see remarkable benefits from consistent medication use, but it is arguably unethical considering their unique symptoms and vulnerabilities, he says.

Smart pills should be evaluated based on their clinical efficacy against the standard of care drugs, like any other intervention, not based only on compliance or cost savings.

“Health information technology functions best when implemented in conjunction with doctors and patients in a collaborative manner,” Swirsky says. “With no magic pill to cure the ills of the modern doctor-patient relationship, patients would be better served by providers who seek a comprehensive understanding of adherence than those who employ technology they do not understand.”

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