Ingestible sensor sends health data to your phone

An ingestible sensor, Proteus, is a brand-new device that can monitor a variety of health metrics from within the patient's body.

Wearable health sensors have appeared on our virtual pages several times over the past few months, including Sano Intelligence’s patch for monitoring blood chemistry. Recently, however, we came across the Proteus ingestible sensor, a brand-new device that can monitor a variety of health metrics from within the patient’s body. Just cleared by the FDA late last month, this new ingestible sensor from California-based Proteus Digital Health is about the size of a grain of sand and can be integrated into an inert pill or medicine. Once in the stomach, it is powered solely by contact with stomach fluid and communicates a unique signal that identifies the timing of ingestion. This information is transferred through the user’s body tissue to a battery-operated patch worn on the skin that detects the signal along with physiological and behavioral metrics such as heart rate, body position and activity. That data, in turn, gets relayed by the patch to a mobile application, where it can be made accessible by caregivers and clinicians. Eventually the Proteus sensor passes through the body like high-fiber food; the patch, meanwhile, has a lifespan of seven days. The system has already been cleared for marketing in the EU as well. Healthcare entrepreneurs around the globe: one to get involved in?