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Your Health: Local Women Invent Pill Monitoring System

Story Published: Jan 24, 2013 at 5:19 PM EDT

Story Updated: Jan 24, 2013 at 7:41 PM EDT

Most of us have done it - forgotten if we have taken prescribed medication. 

That dilemma prompted a Watertown woman and her daughter to come up with a solution which has since been patented and marketed.

Patricia Landino-Buck has Parkinson's disease and she always takes her medication right on schedule. 

She uses the Med-Sked Tab System on her pill bottles, something that she and her daughter, Michael Beadling, invented after mismanagement of her medication sent her to the hospital.

"She originally came up with a concept of a tab system that you would pull off the bottle of medication itself that would say, 'Okay, I took my medication that day.' From there we just kind of came up with the engineering idea of how it could fit every type of medication packaging," said Beadling.

The end result is a plastic sleeve, which a removable tab for each day of the week and fits over the pill bottle. 

The first big sale was to Merck Pharmaceuticals.

"They loved the idea because they wanted to use it as a clinical trial to about 14 different countries across the world. So they bought about 75,000 of them to start," said Beadling.

At $1.50 each, that resulted in a profit of $114,000.

It was Michael's uncle, a downstate businessman, who did the marketing.

The operation has now been licensed to him and a partner with Michael and her mom getting a cut.

The reminder tabs will soon be available to the general public through the company website www.medskedtab.com.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
, Watertown, NY

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