3D-Printed Personalised Tablet for Gastrointestinal Disorders
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Problem Statement
Patients take too many tablets daily, leading to poor outcomes associated with polypharmacy. There is a need for personalised on-demand poly-pills in patients who face problems of malabsorption, high pill burden and multiple supplementations.
Objective
To develop a 3D printing process for personalised tablets and conduct testing & validation of 3D printed tablets
Craft Health have developed Craft Blends™, a proprietary database of formulations made up of paste materials for 3D Printing. In the example above, a 2-in-1 polypill consisting of Vitamin B3 and caffeine with two distinct release profiles, immediate release and sustained release respectively, were 3D printed as an initial proof of concept. Active ingredients may be added to the Craft Blends™ for the desired release profile and rendered 3D printable.
Key Benefits/Outcomes
- Developed 3 different pharmaceutical formulation bases of different release profiles such as immediate and sustained release for the incorporation of various active ingredients to be used in 3D printing.
- Set up the process for 3D printing of personalised supplement or medicines using a paste extrusion 3D printer.
- Demonstrated the combination of various active ingredients into a single pill, while still maintaining its own unique chemical structure and properties.
- Printed tablet has equivalent, if not better properties such as dissolution profiles or hardness, as compared to existing commercial drug tablets.
- Led to one patent filing and creation of a spin-off company (CRAFT HEALTH PTE LTD). The project team has secured NUS GRIP award in its inaugural run and has since raised SGD 950,00 investment in their seed round to further develop and scale up their 3D printing platform for personalised nutrition and medicine.
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