Stereolithography Apparatus Evolution: Enhancing Throughput and Efficiency of Pharmaceutical Formulation Development

Abstract

Pharmaceutical applications of 3D printing technologies are growing rapidly. Among these, vat photopolymerisation (VP) techniques, including Stereolithography (SLA) hold much promise for their potential to deliver personalised medicines on-demand. SLA 3D printing offers advantageous features for pharmaceutical production, such as operating at room temperature and offering an unrivaled printing resolution. However, since conventional SLA apparatus are designed to operate with large volumes of a single photopolymer resin, significant throughput limitations remain. This, coupled with the limited choice of biocompatible polymers and photoinitiators available, hold back the pharmaceutical development using such technologies. Hence, the aim of this work was to develop a novel SLA apparatus specifically designed to allow rapid and efficient screening of pharmaceutical photopolymer formulations. A commercially available SLA apparatus was modified by designing and fabricating a novel resin tank and build platform able to 3D print up to 12 different formulations at a single time, reducing the amount of sample resin required by 20-fold. The novel SLA apparatus was subsequently used to conduct a high throughput screening of 156 placebo photopolymer formulations. The efficiency of the equipment and formulation printability outcomes were evaluated. Improved time and cost efficiency by 91.66% and 94.99%, respectively, has been confirmed using the modified SLA apparatus to deliver high quality, highly printable outputs, thus evidencing that such modifications offer a robust and reliable tool to optimize the throughput and efficiency of vat photopolymerisation techniques in formulation development processes, which can, in turn, support future clinical applications.

3D-Printed Oral Dosage Forms: Mechanical Properties, Computational Approaches and Applications

“…It was found that SLA reduced thermal drug degradation compared to FDM [ 61 ]. However, the main reason holding back the application of SLA in pharmaceuticals is the limited number of photocrosslinkable polymers that are safe for pharmaceutical use [ 62 ]. There could be potential hazards from the use of resins such as carcinogenicity, which need to be identified in the future.…”

Application Progress of 3D Printing in the Field of Spine Surgery

“…The material used in the Stereolithography apparatus (SLA) is photosensitive thermoset polymers [21], the first developed 3D printing technology that uses photopolymerization for 3D printing and cures the resin by absorbing photopolymerization triggered by light [22]. The principle of the architecture is to reuse the resin cured layer by layer, printing the desired product layer by layer.…”

A Bibliometric Analysis of 3D Printing in Personalized Medicine Research from 2012 to 2022

“…This technique requires a large amount of energy from the laser used and is affected by the corresponding power of the light source, the scanning speed, the exposed material, and the polymer and photoinitiation dose [30,36,55]. Presently, the most commonly used photoinitiator is diphenyl (2,4,6-trimethyl-benzoyl) phosphine oxide (TPO) [56]. Unlike FDM technology, SLA technology can be used to print at room temperature and is suitable for printing formulations with heat-sensitive drugs (which can reduce drug degradation) [6,56].…”

“…Presently, the most commonly used photoinitiator is diphenyl (2,4,6-trimethyl-benzoyl) phosphine oxide (TPO) [56]. Unlike FDM technology, SLA technology can be used to print at room temperature and is suitable for printing formulations with heat-sensitive drugs (which can reduce drug degradation) [6,56]. For example, one group of researchers dissolved a drug in different mixtures of polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) and polyethylene glycol (PEG), which were then cured in the presence of a laser beam to prepare a drug delivery device (with a nasal shape) with higher resolution and higher drug loading (1.9% w/w) and no drug degradation compared to a device prepared via FDM [57].…”