Three-Dimensional Printing of Medicinal Products and the Challenge of Personalized Therapy

Abstract

By 3-dimensional (3D) printing, solid objects of any shape are fabricated through layer-by-layer addition of materials based on a digital model. At present, such a technique is broadly exploited in many industrial fields because of major advantages in terms of reduced times and costs of development and production. In the biomedical and pharmaceutical domains, the interest in 3D printing is growing in step with the needs of personalized medicine. Printed scaffolds and prostheses have partly replaced medical devices produced by more established techniques, and more recently, 3D printing has been proposed for the manufacturing of drug products. Notably, the availability of patient-tailored pharmaceuticals would be of utmost importance for children, elderly subjects, poor and high metabolizers, and individuals undergoing multiple drug treatments. 3D printing encompasses a range of differing techniques, each involving advantages and open issues. Particularly, solidification of powder, extrusion, and stereolithography have been applied to the manufacturing of drug products. The main challenge to their exploitation for personalized pharmacologic therapy is likely to be related to the regulatory issues involved and to implementation of production models that may allow to efficiently turn the therapeutic needs of individual patients into small batches of appropriate drug products meeting preset quality requirements.

3D-Printed Modified-Release Tablets: A Review of the Recent Advances

“…Irrespective of the 3D printing technique employed, the process follows three basic steps: the creation of a computer-aided design file; followed by its transformation to a rapid prototyping stereolithography file (.stl), which describes the surface geometry of the 3D object; and finally, its conversion to a machine specific code (.gcode) which is recognized by the 3D printer machine and creates the final object [8] (Figure 1).…”

Retentive drug delivery systems based on shape memory materials

“…[23][24][25][26] Among these, the potential of HME for continuous manufacturing and the rapid prototyping ability of FDM, along with its prospective use as a tool for therapy customization, have drawn special attention. 27,28 Notably, the presence of shape memory components, allowing morphology changes to occur upon exposure to proper external stimuli after the 3D printing process, has provided the basis for 4D printing, the fourth dimension lying in the time frame during which the programmed shape modifications would take place. 29,30 Prototypes conceived in simple original shapes have been obtained by both techniques ( Figure 1).…”

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“…19 However, it is difficult to control the internal pore structure, porosity, and pore connectivity of the scaffolds in these processes, making it challenging to form scaffolds with the desired parameters to simulate suitable micro environment for cells. Scaffold manufacturing should focus on both adequate biological properties and cost effective scaffold production for fast implementation in clinical application.…”