The Opportunities & Obstacles for Pharma’s Use of the Internet of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the networking of physical objects through the use of embedded sensors, actuators, and other devices that can collect or transmit information about the objects. Advances in wireless networking technology have made it possible to collect data from these sensors almost anywhere at any time. The information collected from these smart devices can then be analysed to optimise products, services, and operations.
In recent years, we see an increasing use of IoT in the pharmaceutical and health care industries. Pill-shaped microcameras – “chip in a pill”, a special ingestible pill – have been developed to traverse the human digestive tract, capturing the health status, as well as drug effects on key organs, and transmit the data to a wearable device. This data is then sent as a report over cloud to health care personnel (HCP) for diagnosis. The information obtained can enable HCPs to prescribe personalised medicines that will improve drug efficacy considerably and reduce treatment period.
The Internet of Things is also applied in helping people keep track of their medications at home through smart devices used as personal medication assistant. An example is Amiko which aims to inform, alert and remind people with asthma (patient) to take the right dosage of medication and alerts them should the medication run low.
IoT is transforming the Healthcare industry. Use of smart devices in clinical development and supply chain has helped in many aspects such as manufacturing and supply chain management, higher R & D productivity, improved
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