The Proteus smart pill, once found to be so ‘creepy’, is making its first significant international move by planning to build a UK plant ultimately capable of turning out 10 billion units annually, and also partnering with several NHS-affiliated groups: Eastern Academic Health Science Network (EAHSN), The Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA) and Oxford University, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust and Oxford Academic Health Science Network (OAHSN). According to their CEO Andrew Thompson (quoted in Mobihealthnews), this starts the long NHS tendering and commissioning process. Beyond the sensors in the Proteus pill, the signal is picked up by a disposable patch receiver which transmits via Bluetooth to a smartphone and a tracking app. The business model in their current and future projected digital health devices is based on delivering an outcome, providing vital information about medication-taking behaviors and how your body is responding, not selling the device. How this will blend with the NHS model is a good guess, but the article points out that this may take up some of the loss of pharmaceutical manufacturing business in the UK–a big plus.
And all the bandwidth that Proteus will take up will be no problem, since UK and Germany will be jointly developing 5G wireless networks in the next two years which verily will gulp down all that data, along with having all your devices share the IOT (Internet of Things) chat line while you fast forward that 800 MB movie. The team consists of the University of Dresden, King’s College University in London and the University of Surrey. Note PM David Cameron’s writing pad versus Chancellor Angela Merkel’s tablet/folder combo at the photo taken at the CeBIT 2014 announcement. Daily Mail. Hat tip on both items to reader Mike Short and our own Editor Charles Lowe.
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