AiCure, NIDA Assess Medication Abuses in Trial

AiCure, an artificial intelligence company providing advanced facial recognition and motion-sensing technology to monitor medication ingestion, has announced the start of a major clinical trial to monitor and intervene with patients receiving medication as maintenance therapy for opioid addiction. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has provided $1 million in funding to assess whether patients using the AiCure platform are more adherent and whether adoption of the system can improve treatment duration and reduce the risk of relapse. The large trial is being carried out with the Cincinnati Addiction Research Center (CinARC) at the University of Cincinnati. A total of 130 participants will be enrolled over the course of 12 months. Preliminary results of the trial are expected to be published in August 2015.

AiCure's novel platform works on any smartphone. Unlike FaceTime® or Skype® where there is someone at the other end, in this case artificial intelligence automatically detects in real-time whether the person is taking their medication as prescribed. Patients who take incorrect doses or do not use the software are automatically flagged for immediate follow-up.