Called Helius, reports NatureNews the product will include “sensor-enabled tablets” to monitor patients’ medication use. Compliance with doctors’ instructions has been identified as a problem area in medicine, especially when patients are prescribed multiple drugs that may need to be taken at different times.

“The most important and basic thing we can monitor is the actual physical use of the medicine,” saysAndrew Thompson, (right) CEO of Proteus. “We have tested the system in hundreds of patients in many different therapeutic areas. It’s been tested in tuberculosis, in mental health, in heart failure, in hypertension and in diabetes.”

Lloydspharmacy notes that a World Health Organisation study estimated that no fewer than one in every two patients fail to take medicines correctly, hampering their recovery and perhaps even making their situation worse. On top of this, unused prescription medicine is also understood to cost the NHS around £396m yearly

Healthcare services director Steve Gray (left) reiterated the company's commitment to the improvement of health outcomes for patients, but was very keen to promote the new product that is soon to be hitting the shelves.

"The Helius system is an exciting development which takes our current medication adherence offering to a whole new level," he explained. "There is a huge problem with medicines not being taken correctly.

"You can appreciate the benefits of an information service that helps patients get the most from their treatments and for families to help them remain well," he concluded.

For the system, Proteus has designed sensors called ‘ingestible event markers’, which can be taken with pills or incorporated directly into medicines as part of the manufacturing process. In this system, the sensors will be embedded in a placebo to be taken alongside a medicine.

Lloydspharmacy hopes to make the system, which will be marketed to people with chronic conditions, available from September.

The sensors are activated by stomach acid and are powered much like 'potato batteries', in which two different metals generate a current when inserted into the vegetable.

Each sensor contains a tiny amount of copper and magnesium, says Thompson. “If you swallow one of these devices, you are the potato that creates a voltage, and we use that to power the device that creates the signal.”

The digital signal, he adds, cannot be detected except by a device that attaches to the patient’s skin, much like a bandage. This device also monitors heart rate, respiration and temperature, showing how the patient responds to the medication. These data can then be relayed to a patient’s mobile telephone and shared with whomever the patient chooses.