3D Printing for Medicine Production | What Could the Future of Patient-Tailored Doses Look Like?

Urian B., Tech Times 27 September 2021, 11:09 pm

3D printing has been known to be effective in certain things like bionics but could this technology be used for actual medicine production? Check out what the potential future could look like with the existence of patient-tailored doses.

3D Printing Technology for Medicine

According to the post by ScienceDirect, 3D printing is known as a promising new technology for the production of medicines. It reportedly employs additive manufacturing techniques and is also ideal for producing personalized medicines.

These would include patient-tailored dose, drug release kinetics, and dosage form. In order to investigate how 3D printing technology could actually be implemented in a certain European pharmaceutical system. This is by suggesting different scenarios and also assessing aspects that could potentially affect its own implementation.

3D Printing for Personalized Medicines

Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were actually conducted with key stakeholders. This reportedly includes authorities, the ministry, research organizations, and pharmacies. The interviews were conducted with key stakeholders over in the Netherlands to start eliciting perspectives on 3D printing of personalized medicines.

The Netherlands was reportedly also chosen since it is known to have a strong tradition when it comes to compounding. Five different general scenarios were also investigated. These scenarios include community pharmacies, placing the 3D printer in the industry, hospital pharmacies, compounding facilities, and even patients' homes.

Biological 3D Printing

Content analysis was reportedly utilized and was building on verbatim transcripts. Fifteen different stakeholders were interviewed. The economic, regulatory, ethical, as well as organizational challenges were identified to a number of degrees in different scenarios. 3D printing has even been used to create a replica of Wagyu steak, which showed how far biological 3D printing can go.

The industry, as well as home scenarios, were then associated along with the most challenges, hospital pharmacies, as well as compounding facilities with the least. There were also other important aspects identified which include the role of community pharmacies as well as who should design the tablets to be printed on.

Other Uses for 3D Printing

All potential scenarios for 3D printing of certain personalized medicines include other challenges. These should reportedly be taken into account when actually pursuing the use of a 3D printing machine in order to help make medicine. 3D printed orthopedics are being utilized to help people with foot pain as a new approach towards medicine.

According to the story by PewTrusts, advances when it comes to 3D printing, which is also called additive manufacturing, are now capturing attention in the whole healthcare field due to its potential to improve treatment for certain medical conditions. A certain radiologist, for instance, could actually create an exact replica of a patient's spine in order to help surgery.

A dentist could potentially scan a certain broken tooth in order to make a certain crown that would fit precisely into the patient's mouth. In the two instances, the doctors can make use of 3D printing in order to make products that would specifically match a certain patient's anatomy.

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Written by Urian B.