Customised medicines could one day be manufactured to patients’ individual needs, with University of East Anglia (UEA) researchers investigating technology to 3D ‘print’ pills. The team identified a new additive manufacturing method to allow the 3D printing of medicine in highly porous structures, which can be used to regulate the rate of drug release from the medicine to the body when taken orally. 3D printing has the unique ability to produce porous pharmaceutical solid dosage forms on-demand. Says researcher Dr Sheng Qi, “Currently our medicines are manufactured in ‘one-size-fits-all’ fashion. Personalised medicine uses new manufacturing technology to produce pills that have the accurate dose and drug combinations tailored to individual patients. This would allow the patients to get maximal drug benefit with minimal side effects.”
Comments are closed.