Proteus' body-monitoring chips look to reshape drug compliance

Proteus co-founder Dr. George Savage.

Health care is moving beyond science fiction, and Proteus Digital Health Inc. is leading the fantastic voyage. The Redwood City company won Food and Drug Administration approval in July for an itsy-bitsy stomach-fluid-activated device — the size of a grain of sand — that is embedded in medicine and gives real-time information on how the drug is taken up in the body. The device also records heart rate and other essential data that can help ensure that medicine is working as it should.