Abstract
Three-dimensional printing (3DP) technology allows the fabrication of 3D objects with various geometrics in a layer-by-layer 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 patient-specific 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.
Highlights
Three-dimensional printing (3DP) is a method to produce 3D objects from digital models by fusing or depositing materials in successive layers, which allows the fabrication of objects with various geometrics in a layer-by-layer process
The process is called additive manufacturing, rapid prototyping, or solid free-form fabrication (Goole and Amighi 2016). 3DP technology has been available since the late 1980s and has been used in engineering and various non-medical manufacturing areas, including automotive, aerospace, and consumer goods industries (Alhnan et al 2016), rapid advances in 3DP methods and the emergence of versatile biocompatible materials facilitate the pharmaceutical applications of 3DP technology in recent years
Due to its many inherent advantages over the conventional technologies, including the customization and personalization of medicines with individually adjusted doses, the ability to fabricate complex solid dosage forms with high accuracy and precision, on-demand manufacturing, and costeffectiveness, the application of 3DP methods to the pharmaceutical manufacturing of drug products gains a great attention in recent years
Summary
Three-dimensional printing (3DP) is a method to produce 3D objects from digital models by fusing or depositing materials in successive layers, which allows the fabrication of objects with various geometrics in a layer-by-layer process. In drop-on-drop deposition, the printer head ejects the droplets onto each other to produce a solid layer, resulting in a high resolution 3D structure This direct writing IJ-printing method is capable of fabricating microscopic drug delivery systems having diverse geometries, where droplet size is about 100 μm in diameter and layer thicknesses are smaller than the droplet size maybe due to surface wetting, solvent evaporation, or shrinkage (Norman et al 2017). Instead of dropping the binder solution on a powder bed, nozzle-based deposition systems mix the solid components with the binder prior to 3D printing and directly deposit the mixture through a nozzle to create a 3D object (Vaezi et al 2013) This method can be divided into two subtypes, named fused deposition modeling (FDM) and pressure-assisted microsyringes (PAM), according to the process with or without material melting, respectively. Acetaminophen Chlorpheniramine maleate Chlorpheriramine maleate, diclofenac Levetiracetam Pseudoephedrine HCl 4-Aminosalicyclic acid, paracetamol 5-Aminosalicylic acid, 4-aminosalicylic acid 5-Amino salicylic acid, theophylline, prednisolone Aspirin, hydrochlorothiazide, atenolol, pravastatin sodium and ramipril Captopril, nifedipine and glipizide Guaifenesin Paracetamol Prednisolone Theophylline 5-Fluorouracil Isoniazid and rifampicin Levofloxacin Levofloxacin and tobramycin Dacarbazine Diclofenac Insulin Rhodamine
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