Printing of small molecular medicines from the vapor phase

Abstract

There is growing need to develop efficient methods for early-stage drug discovery, continuous manufacturing of drug delivery vehicles, and ultra-precise dosing of high potency drugs. Here we demonstrate the use of solvent-free organic vapor jet printing to deposit nanostructured films of small molecular pharmaceutical ingredients, including caffeine, paracetamol, ibuprofen, tamoxifen, BAY 11-7082 and fluorescein, with accuracy on the scale of micrograms per square centimeter, onto glass, Tegaderm, Listerine tabs, and stainless steel microneedles. The printed films exhibit similar crystallographic order and chemistry as the original powders; controlled, order-of-magnitude enhancements of dissolution rate are observed relative to powder-form particles. In vitro treatment of breast and ovarian cancer cell cultures in aqueous media by tamoxifen and BAY 11-7082 films shows similar behavior to drugs pre-dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide. The demonstrated precise printing of medicines as films, without the use of solvents, can accelerate drug screening and enable continuous manufacturing, while enhancing dosage accuracy.

Solution Coating of Pharmaceutical Nanothin Films and Multilayer Nanocomposites with Controlled Morphology and Polymorphism

“…However, scaling this technique is challenging because of slow deposition rates. Most recently, organic vapor jet printing was employed as a technique to deposit thin films of APIs, wherein a jet of inert carrier gas thrusts APIs in the vapor phase onto cooled substrates . However, precise control of the deposit thickness and uniformity at the nanometer scale is less straightforward by varying simple processing parameters.…”

A mechanism for ageing in a deeply supercooled molecular glass

“…The growth of glassy molecular solids by condensation of gas is the main growth mechanism for molecular solids in the interstellar medium, 8 is frequently used for the production of molecular electronic components 9 and, increasingly, for drug delivery solutions. 10 It has recently been discovered that molecular ordering can occur in films formed through physical vapour deposition. [11][12][13][14] The phenomenon appears to be a general consequence of the growth of thin films of molecular materials from the vapour phase.…”

Challenges of 3D printing technology for manufacturing biomedical products: A case study of Malaysian manufacturing firms

“…Some of the examples of oral tablets are flat-faced [40], spritam (levetiracetam) [41], and paracetamol [42]. Presently, analysts use vapour-stream as a 3D printing method to keep drug measurements on an assortment of surfaces that incorporate dissolvable Listerine tabs [43]. In the meantime, 3D printing technology can also produce antibiotic and chemotherapeutic drugs that are customized according to patient anatomy and clinical presentation [44].…”