Illustration of a pill with a sensor embedded

Ethical and legal issues of ingestible electronic sensors

This post originally appeared in Device and Materials Engineering. You can read it here.

By Sara Gerke & I. Glenn Cohen

In our new paper, we discuss the ethical challenges of ingestible electronics sensors (IESs; also called “smart pills”) and examine the legal regulation of such sensors in the United States and Europe.

IESs are increasingly being developed for improving health outcomes. One such use could facilitate monitoring and promoting medication adherence. Once swallowed, an IES connects with a wearable sensor that can detect and record valuable data, including behavioral and physiological metrics or the time of drug intake. The wearable sensor subsequently sends the collected data to a computing device (e.g., a smartphone) that processes and displays the information. There is also the option to link the display function with a cloud database for data sharing with the patient’s doctor or family.

Read More