Dutch research organisation TNO has expanded their food 3D printing technology into the medical field by working on 3D printed oral dosage forms (ODFs).
3D printing ODFs has the potential to provide patient-specific tablets, especially for age groups like children and elderly.
“3D Printing of oral dosage forms (ODFs) offers enormous freedom of design with respect to factors such as API dosage, API distribution within an ODF, excipient use and distribution, as well as tablet structure and shape. 3D printing can be used to create unique new products that other methods cannot emulate”, TNO explains.
Due to the similarities of ingredients of food and pharmaceutical drugs, TNO has decided to expand their experience from the food into the medical sector. As the company covers a wide range of 3D printing technologies including FDM, SLS, PBP, IJP and SLA, research is possible exploring a variety of methods.
TNO names a few potential uses of the technology including 3D printing ODFs with varying dosages or specific designed release profiles, ODFs containing multiple APIs, ODFs with internal structures or featuring unique shapes.
The research company is also investigation the behaviour of the 3D printed drugs using their InTESTine in vitro platform.
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