3D printing promotes the development of drugs

• Main Authors: Xiao Zhu, Hongjian Li, Lianfang Huang, Ming Zhang, Wenguo Fan, Liao Cui
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2020-11-01
• Series: Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy
• Subjects: 3D printing; drug development; drug delivery; precise pharmaceutical technology; review
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0753332220308374

3D printing is an emerging field that can be found in medicine, electronics, aviation and other fields. 3D printing, with its personalized and highly customized characteristics, has great potential in the pharmaceutical industry. We were interested in how 3D printing can be used in drug fields. To find out 3D printing’s application in drug fields, we collected the literature by combining the keywords ''3D printing''/''additive manufacturing'' and ''drug''/''tablet''. We found that 3D printing technology has the following applications in medicine: firstly, it can print pills on demand according to the individual condition of the patient, making the dosage more suitable for each patient's own physical condition; secondly, it can print tablets with specific shape and structure to control the release rate; thirdly, it can precisely control the distribution of cells, extracellular matrix and biomaterials to build organs or organ-on-a-chip for drug testing; finally, it could print loose porous pills to reduce swallowing difficulties, or be used to make transdermal microneedle patches to reduce pain of patients.