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Speaker 1: The future of medicine. That is our topic, is it? Yes? Okay? Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Most discussion of healthcare these days revolves around angry discussions

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Speaker 1: of the political Meanwhile, the technology continues to leave forward

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Speaker 1: in some pretty cool ways, and Christopher Roland, business reporter

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Speaker 1: for the Washington Post, joins us to discuss some of

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Speaker 1: those technologies. Hello, Chris, how are you hey? I'm well, thanks?

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Speaker 1: How you doing great? Are? I was caught by your

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Speaker 1: peace in the WAPO about the smart pills and more.

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Speaker 1: Tell I don't like the idea of a pill spine

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Speaker 1: on me. I'll tell you that. Well, you're not alone.

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Speaker 1: I mean there's quite a bit of concern about what

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Speaker 1: it means, um to have a digital pill, so where

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Speaker 1: you take a medication and it has a a sensor

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Speaker 1: inside of it, so it tastes it's like a regular pill,

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Speaker 1: but uh, it does admit a signal as it goes

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Speaker 1: into your stomach, and then uh, your caregivers contract at

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Speaker 1: and make sure that you took your medication. What it's

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Speaker 1: trying to do is solve a big problem of people

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Speaker 1: not being what's called compliant with their medications, that people

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Speaker 1: aren't taking their medications. If people took their medications as

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Speaker 1: they're supposed to. The theory is that it would improve

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Speaker 1: public health, and it's that's probably true. The question is here, UM,

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Speaker 1: what kind of you know, sort of big brother aspects

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Speaker 1: does this introduce? Uh and people can uh you know

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Speaker 1: monitor you digitally uh taking your medicine. It raises a

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Speaker 1: number of privacy concerns UH and also concerns about effectiveness,

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Speaker 1: whether it would actually work as intended. Am I correct

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Speaker 1: that one of the main areas of interest in this

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Speaker 1: sort of thing, this pill is for folks with schizophrenia. Well,

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Speaker 1: so that's so. Uh So the first uh drug approved

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Speaker 1: by the FDA in two thousand seventeen UH to use

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Speaker 1: this digital technology UH is indeed a any psychotic medication

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Speaker 1: called abilify um and that is primarily for people with

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Speaker 1: schizophrenia and also bipolar disorder. And so that is the

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Speaker 1: first population that it's being um introduced in, which uh

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Speaker 1: you know, you could see as a potential um sort

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Speaker 1: of public relations mistake because these are people who have

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Speaker 1: uh significant UM issues with uh you know, paranoia and uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, difficulty taking their drugs. UM. But on the

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Speaker 1: other hand, it is one of the populations where the

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Speaker 1: need to have compliance with medications is the greatest because

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Speaker 1: when people do take their medication and they have schizophrenia, um,

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Speaker 1: their manic episodes are are controlled much better. And when

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Speaker 1: they go off their medications, uh, they can lapse into

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Speaker 1: crisis with you know, potentially you know, devastating consequences including um,

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Speaker 1: you know, fatal outbursts and things like that. So you

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Speaker 1: can see the need for it, but you can also

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Speaker 1: see the you know, the real potential downsides. And I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to picture this in the real world. And my

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Speaker 1: son's been on a Bill of five but he's you know,

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Speaker 1: a kid in our house and we know whether he

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Speaker 1: takes his pill or not. But if he was out

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Speaker 1: on his own taking a bill of Fi, this would

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Speaker 1: be an opportunity maybe for us or the doctors or

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Speaker 1: whoever to know. But by but you do get into

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Speaker 1: some weird areas though, as soon as you do. And

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Speaker 1: I mean so you know, so it's about agency, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: so what's the individuals? And you know, your son's I'm

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Speaker 1: sorry to here by your son and that's you know, definitely,

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Speaker 1: so you understand this firsthand. Um, uh, you know, what

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Speaker 1: about their rights to self determination? And you know, are

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Speaker 1: they being Um, you know, are they doing this voluntarily?

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Speaker 1: And so are they also able to you know, manage

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Speaker 1: all the different complicated aspects of the software and you know,

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Speaker 1: understand everything that's happening. Um and uh, you know are

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Speaker 1: they being coerced at all? So that it raises a

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Speaker 1: lot and then what happens to the data? So is

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Speaker 1: the data kept in a very closed loop or is

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Speaker 1: it potentially you know, um, you know what our insurers

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Speaker 1: doing with that data? You know there's um, you know

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Speaker 1: a lot of data that just goes out and is

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Speaker 1: h it's difficult to control people's healthcare data now, so um,

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Speaker 1: you know, raise a lot of questions about privacy. Chris

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Speaker 1: Rowlands a business reporter for the Washington Post. And so

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Speaker 1: far this technology is like devastatingly expensive to right, Well

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Speaker 1: it is so you know abilify and there's you know

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Speaker 1: generic abilify will uh you know you can it's not

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Speaker 1: an expensive proposition any longer to be taking these anti

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Speaker 1: psychotic drugs. Um and uh this would jack up the

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Speaker 1: price to fifty dollars per month, which is you know,

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Speaker 1: very expensive. A lot of health insurance companies are looking

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Speaker 1: at this and say they raise a lot of concerns

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Speaker 1: about this price, and it seems quite expensive when you

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Speaker 1: know the the generic version of abilifies is cheap, so

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Speaker 1: um and uh. But beyond that is whether it actually works.

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Speaker 1: So you know, uh, you know, the insurers who have

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Speaker 1: their their hands and on the throttle of drug costs

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Speaker 1: are going to be looking to see if it actually

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Speaker 1: works as intended. So if you know, so far it

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Speaker 1: hasn't been proven that this will actually improve compliance. That

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Speaker 1: said that it will have somebody you know, continue to

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Speaker 1: take their drug. Uh, that remains unknown. The FDA approved

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Speaker 1: it just based on the fact that the digital signal

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Speaker 1: is admitted once it goes into your stomach, so so

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Speaker 1: the so the end goal still has unproven. So that's

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Speaker 1: sixty a month cost is prohibitive and is holding the

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Speaker 1: marketplace back right now. Christopher Roland, business reporter for the

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Speaker 1: Washington Post. Christ great job, good to talk to you,

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Speaker 1: Thank you, all right, thank you. You know, there's so

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Speaker 1: many things that are so amazing in medicine these days,

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Speaker 1: but they're so expensive, and then you know, you find

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Speaker 1: out it could really help you, but I can't have

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Speaker 1: it because there's no money for it. That seems like

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Speaker 1: an injustice. Oh yeah, well, this, this treatment that we're

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Speaker 1: starting for my son today is insanely expensive, and uh insurance,

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Speaker 1: thank goodness covered it. Um. But if it didn't, and

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Speaker 1: it often doesn't, for this very treatment that we're doing,

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Speaker 1: it's gonna be somewhere around sixty probably, great, Scott, I mean, so,

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Speaker 1: do you do a go fund me or second mortgage

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Speaker 1: in your house or choose not to do it, loans

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Speaker 1: from family members, everybody? You know, Well, if you're desperate

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Speaker 1: and you do what you have to do, Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: all got to get figured out. The idea of swallowing

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Speaker 1: a pill that transmits something you know, the records of

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Speaker 1: your being prescribed it are already somewhere. I mean, if

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Speaker 1: you're worried about being hacked or that information being somewhere, yeah,

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Speaker 1: probably so,