Customizable drug tablets with constant release profiles via 3D printing technology

Abstract

Medicine should ideally be personalized as each individual has his/her own unique biological, physical, and medical dispositions. Medicine can be personalized by customizing drug tablets with the specific drug dosages, release durations, and combinations of multiple drugs. This study presents a method for fabricating drug tablets with customizable dosages, durations, and combinations of multiple drugs by using the 3D printing technology. The method focuses on fabricating customizable drug tablets with a very simple structure for delivering the constant release profile due to its importance in treatment (i.e., the drug may produce side effects if too much is released andmay not have therapeutic value is too little is released). The method is simple: it involves first printing a template using the 3D printer and fabricating the drug tablet via the template. The tablets are customized by varying the amount of excipient used, the height of the tablet, and the numberand amount of drugs used. Three different common drugs (i.e., paracetamol, phenylephrine HCl and diphenhydramine HCl) and FDA-approved excipients are studied. The simplicity of the structure of the tablet and method via templating allows the fabrication of these fully customizable drug tablets to be easily performed, low-cost, efficient, and safe for consumption. These features enable the customizable tablets to be made widely accessible to the public; hence, the concept of personalized medicine can be realized.