New Analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Innovations in Smart Pills, finds a clear trend towards minimally invasive and remote controlled devices for diagnosis and therapy. Smart pills are widely used for gastrointestinal imaging too, replacing invasive endoscopes. Advancements in enabling technologies, such as wireless communications, remote patient monitoring, and miniaturisation, will widen smart pill applications.
An analyst from Frost & Sullivan said that 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. 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 centres that product differentiation and value enhancement can be achieved.
Being a nascent market there is a need to build confidence among the stakeholders — patients, physicians, researchers, investors and regulatory agencies. Measures like strategic and business partnerships, as well as 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 formidable players.
Besides, company valuations have reduced over the past few years. Collaborating with labs that have access to funds for basic and applied sciences will help secure financial support that 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 commercialise technologies and further the scope of the smart pills.
The analyst also mentioned that 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. Meanwhile, new market participants can rely on technology incubators to ease their technology towards commercialisation.
Moreover, leading companies looking to enter new regions can associate with local medical device companies.
EP News Bureau – Mumbai
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