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© AP photoThe new smart drug could be particularly useful for ensuring the mentally ill continue taking their medications, not just by just giving doctors a way to monitor their behavior, but courts as well.
A best-selling antipsychotic drug soon could get so smart, patients can't lie about taking it.

The company that makes Abilify, a popular medication used to treat conditions including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression, is seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration to insert the pills with a chip alerting doctors if a patient fails to ingest it at the right times.

If approved, Abilify would become the first digital drug with an ingestible sensor, opening the door to a new world of "smart" medications that could dramatically improve medical adherence, especially for those who might have difficulty following a doctor's directives.

"I think you're starting to see these drug products used in more innovative ways," said Wanda Moebius, vice president for public affairs at the Advanced Medical Technology Association. "We're definitely — is it fair to say — on the brink of a new area."


Comment: A new area indeed! Dramatically improving medical adherence - especially for those who may have problems following doctors orders! Remember Big Pharma wants you!


Doctors have prescribed Abilify, one of the top-selling drugs in the U.S., for more than a decade. Now its maker, pharmaceutical giant Otsuka, is partnering with the company that makes the sensor, Proteus Digital Health. The two companies applied to the FDA last month for approval under a new "digital drug" category the agency recently created for such types of new medications.

Used on its own since 2013, the sensor when swallowed is used to record heart rate, temperature, activity and sleeping patterns by sending signals to a wireless patch attached to a person's skin.

But by combining the sensor with Abilify — and eventually other drugs, too — doctors will be able to track and measure how well patients are following their treatments. The FDA is expected to decide by April whether or not it passes muster.

Some have poked fun at drugs with sensors, suggesting they could make patients feel as though their private behaviors are uncomfortably exposed. "Nothing is more reassuring to a schizophrenic than a corporation inserting sensors into your body and feeding information to all those people watching your every move," Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert joked in 2012.