A MILLIONAIRE from York has won the exclusive UK right to market a new pill-sized video camera, which could prolong the lives of throat cancer victims all over the world.

Richard Edmondson, of Fulford, but now living in Spain is, managing director of Thirsk-based Diagmed, which is already responsible for the UK contribution to multi-million pound global sales of an earlier version of the video pill, which monitors the small bowel.

Already 50 hospitals in the UK are among 1,900 throughout the world which use the tiny use-then-flush-away camera. The £300 pill with a £26,000 film receptor worn on the patient's stomach produces "broadcast quality" images as it travels painlessly for eight hours along 22 feet of small intestine.

So far 120,000 of these magic pills have been swallowed by patients all over the world.

The new product, dubbed Pillcam ESO, was launched last month by its makers, Given Imaging of Israel, at a gastro-enterologists' conference in Prague and is designed to travel the short distance through the patient's oesophagus.

Daniel James, Diagmed's project manager, said: "This capsule is double ended - that is it bears two tiny cameras, each able to monitor the journey down the throat at seven frames per second, two more than the lower bowel version. The detail it records from the receptor, which is placed on throat and chest, is phenomenal.

"The potential of this version is also worth millions of pounds and there are two hospitals in the UK which have begun to monitor it. The system is relatively inexpensive for users of the original equipment because they have already invested in the work station system, which costs about £24,000, but many more will be prepared to lay out that capital expenditure for the benefits to be gained."

Apart from early detection of cancer, the pill can "see" dangerous areas of narrowing and signs of various gastric conditions.

Updated: 09:36 Thursday, October 21, 2004