Science
Medicine that talks to you. Eric Buffkin of eTectRx developed an “edible radio” powered by the chemicals in your stomach that tracks when you take every dose of your medication. Eric’s colleague, pharmacist Susan Baumgartner, says about 50% of people that are prescribed medication do not take it when they are supposed to. Over the last decade, the company has extensively tested the ID-Cap System and In December 2019 received FDA approval. The company has had several “near-death” experiences, but Buffkin said the real problem of tracking medication usage wasn’t going away, and therefore the opportunity for the company wouldn’t go away either. Susan said at each pivot point or setback the team and investors said: “let’s go forward.” *This episode is a re-release.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro (00:01): Inventors and their inventions Radio Cade, and podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We'll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we'll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio (00:40): Medicine that talks to you, or at least talks to your smartphone. That's no longer the stuff of science fiction. It will soon be available for patients everywhere. Welcome to another episode of Radio Cade, I'm your host, James Di Virgilio. And today my guests are Eric Buffkin and Susan Baumgartner the developers of a system called ID Cap and the co-founder of a company called eTectRx. Welcome to the show, Eric and Susan. Eric Buffkin (01:03): Thanks very much. James Di Virgilio (01:04): So let's dive right into your story. I spent a lot of time pre-show talking with you, Eric, about what you developed. It's very fascinating. I'm sitting here looking at it right now, in its simplest form you developed a medical breakthrough, this something that doesn't exist in its form. Tell us about what you've done, what you've created. Eric Buffkin (01:19): Probably the most important thing we invented James, is a way to communicate in an edible radio. And when you get right down to it, it's a tiny little radio that's small enough that you can swallow it and it can take power off of the chemicals in your stomach. And so you don't need a battery. You don't need much of anything. You can see it there it's really tiny. And once you swallow it, it essentially starts transmitting. There are a lot of folks that have tried to do different things like this. You can get ingestible cameras for doing endoscopy's and different things, but they're typically fairly large, fairly expensive and not somethin