Biotech investor backs electronic smart pill bottle

A Manchester medtech company has completed a £510,000 funding round for its electronic smart pill bottle that monitors whether patients have taken them.

The Pill Connect system physically dispenses a pill when patients respond to an app reminder, with prompts by text or phone if pill is not dispensed. It provides clinicians and trialists with comprehensive data on a patient’s adherence pattern.

The capital raised will enable Pill Connect to complete development of the design, electronics and software for submission to the regulatory authorities in both Europe and the US and continue through to commercial launch.

The funding has come from biotech investor Jonathan Milner, Catapult Ventures and Shallcross Partners.

Milner is the co-founder of the Milner Therapeutics Institute in Cambridge and the Milner Centre for Evolution in Bath. His investments include Gelmetix, a Manchester company that has developed a non-surgical procedure for the treatment of chronic lower back pain caused by degenerative disc disease.

Pill Connect, which until recently was called Elucid mHealth, has already put its technology through a series of clinical trials involving contract research organisations, pharmaceutical companies and The Medication Adherence Expertise Center at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

The system is unique because as well as providing a detailed adherence record, it allows for an immediate intervention by an automated notifications or phone call should the app not be activated.

This is particularly important in clinical trials where poor adherence can compromise the validity of the trial.