3D printing in pharmaceutics: A new tool for designing customized drug delivery systems

Abstract

Three-dimensional printing includes a wide variety of manufacturing techniques, which are all based on digitally-controlled depositing of materials (layer-by-layer) to create freeform geometries. Therefore, three-dimensional printing processes are commonly associated with freeform fabrication techniques. For years, these methods were extensively used in the field of biomanufacturing (especially for bone and tissue engineering) to produce sophisticated and tailor-made scaffolds from patient scans. This paper aims to review the processes that can be used in pharmaceutics, including the parameters to be controlled. In practice, it not straightforward for a formulator to be aware of the various technical advances made in this field, which is gaining more and more interest. Thus, a particular aim of this review is to give an overview on the pragmatic tools, which can be used for designing customized drug delivery systems using 3D printing.

Keywords: 3D printing; Drug delivery systems; Pharmaceutics; Rapid prototyping; Solid freeform fabrication.