Forgetful patients to be fitted with microchips to remind them to take their pills

Patients will be fitted with a microchip in their shoulder to remind them to take their medicine, under a new scheme being developed by a drugs company.

Older people will be given pills containing a harmless microchip that sends a signal to the chip in the shoulder when the pill is taken.

But if the pill is not taken by the forgetful patient, the chip in the shoulder will then send a text to a carer or the patient to remind them.

Swiss pharmaceutical group Norvatis is developing the electronic pill that it hopes will reduce the number of patients who have to be supervised taking their medicine.

Joe Jiminez, head of pharmaceuticals at Novartis, said tests of the ‘chip in the pill’ to a shoulder receiver chip had been carried out on 20 patients.

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