MicroVitality Founder Zoe Watson Explains New Capsule Designed to Sample the Small Intestine

Could an Ingestible Capsule Improve Small-Intestine Testing?

By-Hank Stolz
Photo- submitted

Questions, Concerns, Opinions?

TEXT US! >> 774-364-8255

Worcester, MA-MicroVitality is a medical device company that has developed an ingestible capsule designed to sample from the small intestine, a region of the gastrointestinal tract that has historically been difficult to access with existing diagnostic tools. Founded by Zoe Watson and spun out of Tufts University, the company aims to address the widespread underdiagnosis of functional gut motility disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), and celiac disease, conditions estimated to go undiagnosed in up to 75% of affected patients. Watson tells Hank Stolz that “A lot of GI or gastrointestinal care today is symptom driven…with a lot of unanswered questions for patients. And so, there are severe misdiagnosis and underdiagnosis because of our diagnostic limitation and tooling.” 

Watson explained how it works, “It’s actually completely passive technology at this stage…it’s actually using a mechanism to passively sample. So autonomously it can collect a sample, it self-seals, so it locks specific to the environment after the stomach and the small bowel.” “It’s passed over the toilet bowl, similar to a Cologuard where you just collect the stool, ship it off, and then we’ll work on it in the laboratory process and give you the report.” 

Microvitality –microvitalitybio.com
Founder- Zoe Watson