Proteus Digital Health

Proteus Digital Health raised $500M to revolutionize medicine with ingestible sensors that tracked medication compliance. The technology worked—the FDA approved it—but hospitals wouldn't pay and patients resisted swallowing tracking devices. Proteus exemplifies the healthcare adoption paradox: even superior technology fails when it doesn't fit existing workflows, reimbursement structures, and patient psychology. Like an organism with a brilliant adaptation that provides no survival advantage, Proteus solved a technical problem that wasn't the actual barrier.