In recognition of the huge potential of bioactive 3D printing, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center at Shreveport has recently been awarded a $40,000 grant/investment to open the first Shreveport, LA area medical 3D printing lab.

While the technology most likely will be available and tested in hospitals and medical offices first, researchers at University College London (UCL) are currently developing specialized tablets that look like they have the potential for not only great medical use, but commercial as well, offering users the ability to 3D print attractive shapes and flavors for kids.

Two universities are working together in creating a new 3D printed therapeutic drug that is loaded with biomolecules and encased in “highly monodisperse core/shell capsules.” 

New fast dissolving tablets, known as ZipDoses, were developed by Aprecia Pharmaceuticals who modified 3D printing technology technology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that was designed to create fast melting products.

In a study published Wednesday in Nature, researchers present a new technique for building these complex structures on the smallest possible scale. One day, these tiny, intricate objects could be used to deliver drug therapies, along with other applications not even dreamed up yet.

A German company created an IndieGoGo campaign to create filaments that could be used to create custom sized drug prescriptions based on patient size, weight, age, etc.

National University of Singapore has introduced inexpensive and simple pills which can be made from different medicines as a personalisation. These pills can contain multiple medicines and can have different release formulas within one combination.

U.S Food and Drug Administration has approved 3d printed drug for the first time. Aprecia pharmaceuticals 3D printed Spiritam, generic of levetiracetam, which will be used to treat epilepsy. This 3D printed drug is made by ZipDose technique, with better solubility.

Researchers from the University College London’s School of Pharmacy have concluded that 3D Printers using Stereolithography (SLA) technology are most viable and potent for manufacturing oral tablets for prescription drugs. This will allow them to keep the drugs contained with the “solidified matrices” thus reducing degradation and enhancing drug action.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University (Israel) have managed to engineer a Nanotech ‘heart patch’ which could enable remote monitoring and regulation of a patient’s heart. Currently replacing the infarcted heart muscle, it is worked upon to sense acute attacks and deliver drugs instantly in response to heart damage.

Using an innovative 3D inkjet printing method, researchers from Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield have developed silk 'Micro-Rockets' which are biodegradable and harmless to biological system. Being just 300 microns in length and 100 microns in diameter, these silk-catalyst made rockets can be used for Drug delivery and locating cancer cells.

Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) imaging calibrating with 3D printed phantoms have appeared to be the best for patient-specific absorbed dose calculations for molecular radiotherapy requiring accurate activity quantification. These 3D printed phantom inserts can significantly improve the accuracy of whole organ activity quantification for molecular radiotherapy and are cost effective and efficient way.

The FDA issued draft guidance on 3D-printed devices in May and has already cleared 85 medical devices and one prescription drug manufactured via 3D printing. The guidance has been open for comments until August while the officials note the rules stop short of addressing products that involve biological material.

Team of Researchers at Multiply Labs have launched their first Personalized Supplement in market which consists of Vitamins, Minerals and others like Caffeine and Omega 3 and comes in form of capsule which is half an inch long and contains only pure elements, no additives. These capsules are 3D printed with FDA-approved pharmaceutical polymers, and then filled by a robotic system and moreover, Multiply Labs allows you to design own pills by specifying the supplements and quantities of desire.

The relationship between Medicine and 3D printing market is expected to rise, and cross the $3.89 billion mark by 2022. To these, achievements like the launch of 3D printed organs, which will cause a rapid decrease in the testing of new drugs, and medicine on animals, are constantly adding to the potential of 3D Printing. 3D printers can create specifically designed medicine with accurate dosage size, color and delivery modes which are patient orientated and improve patient care.

Since the launch of less costly 3D Printers, more and more users are now getting to 3D Print their own Pharmaceutical pills at home. This has led to Piracy issues of 3D Printed medical drugs which require FDA approval and hence, the need to claim copyrighting for them. It has been asked that manufactures might be required to design the drugs in such a way that it requires a specific type of material, one not compatible with 3D technology.

Two professors at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, Guillermo Ameer and Cheng Sun, have developed a method of 3D printing patient-specific vascular stents that are both flexible and biodegradable. These 3D printed stents can be pre-loaded with drugs that are released at site of implant, shortening the healing process in the walls of blood vessels. Meanwhile the unique polymer material allows the stent to exercise its mechanical function during the vessel’s initial dilation but slowly dissolve as the re-opened blood vessel recovers.

San Francisco-based Aether has announced a project collaboration with UniSA to pursue a 3D bioprinting research breakthrough in contraception using their own Aether 1 3D Bioprinter and the project is being funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The goal of the project is to develop an in vitro oviduct model, which will replicate the “spermatozoa capacitation process” in order to screen natural products and novel drugs which will target this process in the oviduct, resulting in a brand new contraceptive paradigm.

At University of Indianapolis, Dr. Erin Peterson, Assistant Professor of Occupational Therapy is working on determining the best use of 3D Printing technology in field of Occupational Therapy Education for both master’s and doctoral students. After receiving the MakerGear M3 desktop 3D Printer and Scanner, they started 3D Printing innovative designs for assistive devices and custom anatomical models, as well as using Customized 3D Printed Pill Boxes to improve daily medication routines.

Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) is a semi-permeable that protects brain from direct contact with damaging entities in body. Until now, animals have been used to test drugs that cross BBB, but now researchers are capable of reproducing the microcapillaries of neurovascular system on 1:1 scale using 3D Printing technology. Carried out by Gianni Ciofani, Associate Professor at Polytechnic University of Torino, the mimicked BBB is important for developing pharmaceuticals that can cross boundary as there currently exist drug compounds that demonstrate great potential for addressing brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and ALS.

An international research team collaborated to 3D Print Simple Liver Model using bioprinted tissue to develop a more accurate drug toxicity testing system. The new advancement can construct vascularized tissue, which is then able to mimic drug administration in vivo in 3D bioprinted liver tissue. This new model will allow scientists to observe the in vivo effects of drug absorption without having to actually set up a real in vivo study.

Cellink, a Swedish 3D Printing Company founded by Erik Gatenholm and Hector Martinez Avila, has announced their partnership with CTI Biotech, a French company based in Lyon, to fabricate tumors that can be used for pharmaceuticals testing. The ability to mix their own inks with cells from patients’ cancers will allow them to produce tumors that can be subjected to intense research without endangering human lives and simultaneously remove animal testing.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow are using a chemical-to-digital converter to digitize the process of drug manufacturing to 3D print pharmaceuticals on demand. The digital code is used by the 3D printer to make a portable factory, which can make the drug by adding chemicals in a pre-defined, fail-safe sequence, making it possible for users to synthesize nearly any compound.

A team of researchers based at the University of Utah worked on unmet clinical needs of 3D Printing and explained the needs in terms of structural support for skeletal and tubular organs, novel drug delivery strategies, organ-on-a-chip platform and finally, multimaterial 3D printing, which can help speed up the creation of bioelectronic constructs to impart active functionalities to an otherwise passive construct. Through the research, they addressed how 3D Printing Potential can be explored furthermore to increase compliance and comfort in terms of human satisfaction.

Researchers from FabRx are working on using 3D Printing to create personalized medicine for patients that could reduce the adverse effects to individuals. Though FDM 3D Printing has potential, the high extrusion temperature limits the potential active ingredients to only heat-stable ones, it was still chosen over SLA 3D Printing since it was unsafe. A regenHU 3D bioprinter was used to print paracetamol into three different tablet geometries – solid, ring and mesh and the results could be invariably beneficial if successful for the individual personalization of medicines.

A Research paper was recently published by Preethy Ani Jose, with the Oxford College of Pharmacy, and Peter Christopher GV, from pharmaceutical company Strides Shasun Limited in Bangalore, concerning the challenges faced by Pharmaceuticals when being introduced with 3D Printing. The paper presents regulatory agencies expectations, limitations, problems in establishing such setups for production of drug products, etc. The research paper also discusses how 3D Printing faces challeneges such as proper testing of Design and Manufacturing Process Considerations, validating the 3D printing process and software to determine the level of accuracy, and documentation in order to confirm that any products conform to existing guidelines.

A group of researchers from the University of Sussex are working towards Drug Delivery Systems by combining FDM technology with Hot-Melt Extrusion (HME) which involves blending of Active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) with a thermoplastic polymer, and extrusion as filaments. Through pairing of HME with FDM technology, the researchers can help increase the range of usable FDM polymers and improve the usability of FDM 3D printers across many industries. HME, which does not require the use of a solvent, can be used to make drugs with a less bitter taste, while also lowering production times and increasing process efficiency.

Researchers from UK and Spain used 3D Printing to help Visually Impaired using Printlets with Braille and Moon patterns. SLS 3D printing was used to fabricate the orally disintegrating printlets (ODPs) with Braille and Moon patterns, allowing patients to have fast knowledge regarding medication where Paracetamol was used as the model drug. The researchers believe this will encourages self-administration of medicines, improving patient compliance and treatment efficacy.

A Team of Researchers from UK experimented on using 3D Printing to create Orally disintegrating tablets (ODTs) of Ondansetron, a drug used in Vomiting receiving Chemotherapy, with the help of SLS 3D printing. The researchers developed a new type of ondansetron-cyclodextrin complexes meant to disintegrate rapidly, which were compared to Vonau Flash 8 mg, a commercial example of Ondansetron. Both 3D printed formulations disintegrated at ~15 s and released more than 90% of the drug within 5 min independent of the mannitol content, thus concluding that these results were comparable to those obtained with the commercial product with added benefit of using a manufacturing technology able to prepare medicines individualized to the patient.

When it comes to Needles, everyone fears the prick. A Team of Researchers in China set out on path to 3D Print Hydrogel Microneedles that can be used for various clinical purposes involving drug loading, reducing pain and greatly increasing the drug loading capacity. They created creating high-performance yet affordable hydrogel Microneedles through high-precision digital light processing (H-P DLP). Upon completing the study, the authors noted 300ms as the ‘ideal exposure time’ for building Microneedles.