Pharmaceutical applications of 3D printing technology: current understanding and future perspectives

Abstract

Three-dimensional printing (3DP) technology allows the fabrication of 3D objects with various geometrics in a layer-bylayer process. Some advantages of 3DP methods over the conventional manufacturing processes include the customization of medicines with individually adjusted doses, the ability to fabricate the sophisticated and complex solid dosage forms, on-demand manufacturing, and cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, recent years have seen an increasing interest in applying 3DP technology to the pharmaceutical manufacturing of drug products and development of various drug delivery systems. However, although 3DP technology exhibits many potential medical and economic benefits, there are also some technical and regulatory challenges restricting the wide applications of 3DP technology to pharmaceutical products. Accordingly, continuous innovation and refinement in 3DP methods are needed to overcome the current limitations and facilitate patientspecific health care with on-demand tailored medications in the future. This review introduces some 3DP techniques suitable for pharmaceutical manufacturing and also their applications to the development of drug dosage forms, indicating the feasibility of this technology in regular commercial production.

Orodispersible Polymer Films with the Poorly Water-Soluble Drug, Olanzapine: Hot-Melt Pneumatic Extrusion for Single-Process 3D Printing

“…Different from administration in the form of fixed doses in large manufacturing, it enables the flexible production of patient-tailored drugs to meet unsatisfied clinical needs. 3D printing technologies, such as inkjet, fused deposition modeling (FDM), and selective laser sintering (SLS), are more suitable for wide applications in manufacturing pharmaceutical dosage forms [24]. Among the many technologies applicable to 3D printing, the most actively used technology in the pharmaceutical industry is material extrusion, which is described as an FDM [25][26][27].…”

Design and Fabrication of Three-Dimensional Printed Scaffolds for Cancer Precision Medicine

“…Digital light processing (DLP) 3D printers has been used for the fabrication of solid oral tablets with different release profiles. 40,41 Compare with the commercially available SLA printers, the DLP printers are faster and function using various ultraviolet light sources, wavelengths, intensities, and with small volumes of photoreactive polymers. 40 Lastly, the DLP technology enables faster fabrication of tablets with distinct release properties.…”

Preparation of Hot-Melt Extruded Dosage Form for Enhancing Drugs Absorption Based on Computational Simulation

“…In other words, the cilostazol crystallinity was maintained even after the hot-melt extrusion process and cilostazol was made to clusters with lipid. Thus, it is possible that this formulation maintained the stability of the drug [32][33][34] and may induce adequate bile secretion in the small intestine.…”