Boom in Smart Pills Will Reach New Peaks

The increasing need for convenient diagnostic and accurate therapeutic tools is driving innovation in smart pills. These are the latest findings of Frost & Sullivan (Frost; London, United Kingdom), an international market research firm.

Smart pills are widely used for gastrointestinal (GI) imaging, replacing invasive endoscopes. But while GI imaging sensing technologies have been successfully commercialized, other projected uses, such as drug delivery pills and surgical smart pills, have yet to be proven clinically. Commercialization preference and focus is currently on wireless capsule endoscopes and ingestible sensors for internal signs monitoring. In the future, advancements in smart pill enabling technologies, such as wireless communications, remote patient monitoring, and miniaturization, will further widen the range of smart pill applications.

Being a nascent market, there is a need to build confidence among patients, physicians, researchers, investors, and regulatory agencies. Measures such as strategic and business partnerships and scientific and clinical education will help win the trust of regulatory authorities, investors, and users. In addition, it is imperative that companies take advantage of the government funding available to universities and small businesses. This is especially vital owing to the uneven distribution of venture capital investment, which prevents start-up companies from developing into players.

An additional path to help start-up companies’ growth is partnering with laboratories that have access to funds for basic and applied sciences, to help secure financial support which can be leveraged into commercial products. In fact, government-sponsored research projects have given rise to formidable academia-industry research collaboration. Such research consortia are especially common in the European Union, resulting in successful spin-offs that commercialize technologies and further the scope of the smart pills.

“Smaller companies that cannot effectively translate a technology into a commercial product, can also explore licensing them to companies with established solutions in the market,” suggested Frost technical insights research analyst Bhargav Rajan. “Meanwhile, new market participants can rely on technology incubators to ease their technology towards commercialization.”

“The smart pills industry is likely to experience a burst of new products in the next five to seven years, offering tremendous potential for collaboration between the industry and academia,” added Mr. Rajan. “While overarching product designs developed by the industry can lead to breakthrough products such as capsule endoscopes, it is by leveraging ideas from basic and applied sciences at universities and research centers that product differentiation and value enhancement can be achieved.”

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