Water-based 3D inkjet printing of an oral pharmaceutical dosage form

Abstract

Inkjet printing is a form of additive manufacturing where liquid droplets are selectively deposited onto a substrate followed by solidification. The process provides significant potential advantages for producing solid oral dosage forms or tablets, including a reduction in the number of manufacturing steps as well as the ability to tailor a unique dosage regime to an individual patient. This study utilises solvent inkjet printing to print tablets through the use of a Fujifilm Dimatix printer. Using polyvinylpyrrolidone and thiamine hydrochloride (a model excipient and drug, respectively), a water-based ink formulation was developed to exhibit reliable and effective jetting properties. Tablets were printed on polyethylene terephthalate films where solvent evaporation in the ambient environment was the solidification mechanism. The tablets were shown to contain a drug loading commensurate with the composition of the 2 ink, in its preferred polymorphic phase of a non-stoichiometric hydrate distributed homogenously. The printed tablets displayed rapid drug release. This paper illustrates solvent inkjet printing's ability to print entire free-standing tablets without an edible substrate being part of the tablet and the use of additional printing methods. Common problems with solvent-based inkjet printing, such as the use toxic solvents, are avoided. The strategy developed here for tablet manufacturing from a suitable ink is general and provides a framework for the formulation for any drug that is soluble in water.

Practicality of 3D Printed Personalized Medicines in Therapeutics

“…The printed tablets displayed rapid drug release. The strategy developed Cader et al (2019) for tablet manufacturing from a suitable ink provides a framework for the formulation for any drug that is soluble in water (Cader et al, 2019). Clark et al (2017) have also used piezoactivated inkjetting to 3D print tablets containing 0.41 mg of ropinirole hydrochloride.…”

Polymers for Extrusion-Based 3D Printing of Pharmaceuticals: A Holistic Materials–Process Perspective

“…Since this work, there have been significant advancements in 3D printing pharmaceuticals using inkjet printing as well as other printing technologies. The technologies used for drug product development are powder-based printing (powder bed and powder jetting) [13][14][15][16], extrusion (solid or semi-solid) based printing (fused deposition modelling (FDM), pressure-assisted microsyringes (PAM)) [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26], stereolithographic (SLA) printing [27][28][29], selective laser sintering (SLS) printing [30][31][32], inkjet printing [33][34][35], digital light processing (DLP) [36,37], etc. Among all these printing processes, extrusion-based printing (FDM, PAM) has shown a growing interest among researchers due to the advantage of low cost, ability to fabricate hollow objects, ability to print using a range of polymers with or without drug, ability to tune drug release by tuning the geometry and polymer, and ability to print at room temperature (using PAM), etc.…”

3DP Printing of Oral Solid Formulations: A Systematic Review

“…In piezoelectric inkjet mechanism, on the other hand, a piezoelectric material is used and once a voltage is applied to this material, this leads to the mechanical deformation, which causes the ejection of the ink droplets. Furthermore, this second mechanism is considered more advantageous than the first due to the low risk of thermal degradation of heat-sensitive ink in response to the heat [19][20][21]. The main advantages of the inkjet 3DP include a reduced number of steps to manufacture personalised tablets and control of the drug release by varying specific printing parameters such as size or surface area of the printed geometry, loading of jetted droplets, changing the droplet spacing on the substrate and also the freedom of spatial location of a drug delivery system.…”