Philips designs 'smart' camera pill

By Leslie Katz on 13 November 2008, 10:47am

Philips Research has come out with a new intelligent camera pill that can be electronically preprogrammed to deliver targeted doses of medicine to patients with digestive disorders such as Crohn's disease, colitis and colon cancer.

The device comes in the form of an 11mm by 26mm capsule that patients swallow with water, just like any other pill. It's designed to pass through the digestive tract of its own accord, meaning you just let nature take its course with this one.

The iPill determines its location through a pH sensor that measures the acidity of the environment, which varies throughout the intestinal tract. The device then releases medicine from its drug reservoir by means of a microprocessor-controlled pump -- either in a burst or a progressive release. Philips says the smart pill can also deliver medicine to multiple locations.

Announced at the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists' annual meeting and exposition this week in Atlanta, Georgia, the capsule is also designed to measure data such as local temperature, and report measurements wirelessly to an external receiver unit.

While its drug delivery system appears promising, the Philips iPill is not the first camera pill to enter the picture. Among other such products, GivenImaging created the PillCam Colon Capsule Endoscope for viewing the colon, as well the PillCam ESO for the esophagus and the PillCam SB for the gastrointestinal tract.