Digital Pills : The IoT in Healthcare
- The Smart pills market in 2014 is valued at$1.56 billion.
- It is forecasted to reach$3.83 billion in the year 2020, growing at aCAGR of 16.16% (2014 – 2020).
- This will continue to reach $8.98 billion by the year 2024, growing at a CAGR of 23.7% (2020 – 2024).
Digital Pills are the new technology in the healthcare frontier which is changing the dynamics of medicine and healthcare. It’s the age of IoT in Healthcare.
Smart Pills, Digital Pills
What is a Digital Pill?
A smart pill or a digital pill is a pill which tracks the medication and medical condition of a patient. With it, a doctor can track down how the patient is faring, if he has taken his medications properly and how those medications are affecting his body.
How does it work?
The FDA approved the first digital pill called Abilify MyCite which was fitted with a tiny ingestible sensor that communicates with a patch worn by the patient. The patch then transmits medication data to a smartphone app which the patient can voluntarily upload to a database for their doctor and other authorized persons to see. Abilify is a drug that treats schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and is an add-on treatment for depression.
How does it help you?
The smart pills market offers lucrative growth opportunities due to added benefits over traditional endoscopes and ease in the detection of cancer. Drug delivery and patient monitoring applications are expected to witness an increase in the adoption of smart pills in order reduce the healthcare costs and to increase patient satisfaction.
Favorable reimbursement scenario, patient preference for minimally invasive procedures and noninvasive procedures, technological advancements in endoscopy procedures, and rising prevalence of colon cancer are some of the major drivers of this market.
The Smart Pill Market
Additionally, bowel scope screening procedures and the aging population are providing a boost to this market. Countries have been providing special endoscopy training workshops along with huge corporate investments in R&D. Japan is one such country where the reimbursement approval for diagnostic and screening capsule endoscopy is encouraging market growth. The U.S. currently dominates the smart pills market.
On the basis of applications, the capsule endoscopy segment will continue to dominate the smart pills market during the forecast period. The large share of this segment can be attributed to the ease of the procedure, noninvasive nature, and technological advancements over conventional endoscopes. The drug delivery and patient monitoring segments also pose strong growth opportunities due to advantages such as remote patient monitoring and targeted drug delivery.
North America dominated the smart pills market. The Asian market, on the other hand, is relatively new; however, increasing awareness among patients, technological advancements, and improved reimbursements are expected to drive the growth of this market.
Top Players and Strategies
The major players of the smart pills market are CapsoVision, Inc. (U.S.), Given Imaging, Inc. (Israel), Medimetrics S.A. de C.V. (Mexico), Olympus Corporation(Japan), and Bio-Images Research Limited (U.K.).
Agreements, partnerships, and collaborations; and new product launches are some of the major strategies adopted by the players to achieve growth. New product launches were the major growth strategy implemented by companies in the smart pills market. Companies adopted this strategy to develop new and advanced solutions, strengthen their product portfolios, and to cater to the unmet needs of their customers. CapsoVision, Inc. (U.S.) and Olympus Corporation (Japan) are some of the major companies that adopted this strategy.
The strategy of agreements was aimed at integrating technologies of partnered companies to enhance product offerings. Some of the key players that adopted this strategy include Bio-Images Research Limited (U.K.), CapsoVision, Inc. (U.S.), and Medimetrics S.A. de C.V. (Mexico).
Source: Poonam AS on LinkedIn