Electroceutical's Offers a Brave New Future

Electroceutical's or bioelectronics next big leap in healthcare

Google's Alphabet involved in bioelectronics research

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Britain’s biggest drugmaker, GlaxoSmithKline, under pressure to improve its development pipeline and financial performance, is pinning its hopes on a radical new approach: “electroceuticals”. 

Also called bioelectronics, the idea is that tiny electronic implants will be able to treat a vast range of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), arthritis, hypertension and other heart conditions, and gastrointestinal diseases.

A year after GSK teamed up with Google’s parent company, Alphabet, to set up Galvani Bioelectronics, Kris Famm, who runs the venture, is confident that an implantable device capable of altering electrical impulses in the body is within reach. From the Guardian

Experts see electroceuticals as the next 'winner' in healthcare treatment. Currently, the focus for the technology is on treatment for such things as diabetes, asthma, and heart conditions, as well as sports-related injury. But in the future, the technology could reach into treatment for cancer, Parkinson's, and mental health. 

Bioelectronic exist in the marketplace as external devices

GlaxoSmithKline is pursuing implantable devices that target the nervous system. But there already exists external electroceutical devices that achieve similar health benefits. These devices work in the same way but are administered externally and benefit microcirculation by sending electronic pulses to our bodies blood cells. Since it is such a new technology, it is not widely known about. But the technology is there and the word is getting out. 

The benefits of an external device click here for more is that there is no surgery involved like in an implanted device and it is available right now. Plus, treatment with the device can be administered in the home and shared by the entire family.  

This will be far more precise than the way conventional drugs work. “There’s a real potential for optimisation and personalisation of therapy – controlling just one thing without side effects,” Famm says.
But bioelectronics is unlikely to work for cancer, where “typically things have gone extremely awry”. Sufferers of brain disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s and pain conditions will also be disappointed because they affect the whole brain tissue. GSK decided to focus on the peripheral nervous system because the brain is hugely complex, Famm says.