Smart loo among tech used at drug giant's $42m S'pore hub

Sensors help make Eli Lilly clinical trials more comfortable, improve research quality

- Osmond Chia

How can clinical trial participants be prevented from recording information inaccurately? One solution for pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company comes in the form of a smart toilet that detects when and for how long a person is using it, saving him the trouble of logging the information himself.

The smart loo is among a plethora of smart sensors used at Lilly's new $42 million Digital Health Innovation Hub here to make clinical trials more comfortable for participants and improve the quality of medical research.

Backed by the Economic Development Board (EDB), the hub was launched on Nov 14 at the Lilly Centre for Clinical Pharmacology in Buona Vista, expanding the US-based company's work in Singapore, where it has operated for more than two decades.

The loo has pressure sensors to log how long a test participant is seated - one of many forms of data collected that helps researchers understand the effects of the medication they are testing.