Smart bottles remind patients to take their meds when doses are missed

Failure to take prescriptions as directed is blamed for an annual death rate of more than 125,000 people.

January 6, 2016

New “smart” pill bottles are now in production thanks to collaboration between Manhattan start-up Adhere Tech Inc., and Hauppauge (Long Island) based Intelligent Product Solutions. The bottles employ built in sensors to compare how often they are used to what the patient should be doing and are designed to issue reminders via flashing lights, sounds or automated text and phone calls when a dose is missed. According to the CDC failure to adhere to prescription directives results in approximately 125,000 deaths each year, and carries a “direct economic cost estimated to be close to $289 billion annually.”

“The whole idea is that this product can leverage analyzed data to improve the lives of users,” stated Adhere Tech co-founder and CEO Josh Stein.

He also added that while the first generation of smart bottles succeeded in improving medical dosage adherence by 20%, the companies have had to retool the design to make it more practical for mass production on automated manufacturing equipment, as well as to increase the battery life from 45-days to 6-months. In addition, they have had to make sure that the bottles meet FCC and cellular carrier regulations.

“The biggest challenge was fitting very complicated dense electronics into a very small footprint,” added IPS founders Mitch Maiman and Paul Servino.

Adhere Tech plans to manufacture 10,000 of its smart bottles by the end of the year. In the meantime, they have already distributed a limited number of them to a few pharmaceutical companies, as well as a limited number of medical facilities, including Walter Reed National Medical Center and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

http://www.examiner.com/article/smart-bottles-remind-patients-to-take-their-meds-when-doses-are-missed