In Washington, D.C., the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first drug in the U.S. with a digital ingestion tracking system. Abilify MyCite has an ingestible sensor embedded in the pill that records that the medication was taken and works by sending a message from the pill’s sensor to a wearable patch.
The patch transmits the information to a mobile application on the patient’s smart phone. Patients can also give their caregivers and physician permission to access the information through a web-based portal.
“Being able to track ingestion of medications prescribed for mental illness may be useful for some patients,” said Mitchell Mathis, M.D., director of the Division of Psychiatry Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “The FDA supports the development and use of new technology in prescription drugs and is committed to working with companies to understand how technology might benefit patients and prescribers.”