By Abubakar Abdurrazzaq 

Imagine getting your medicine straight from a printer — personalized, precise, and ready in seconds. 3D printing is redefining how the future of pharmacy looks, and that future might be closer than we think.

Welcome to the Future

Have you ever imagined walking into a pharmacy, typing your prescription into a computer and then – whirr, click – out pops your medicine from a printer in exactly the right dosage form, required formulation strength, appropriate release profile, and even the size and shape of the pill, all according to your specific requirements? 3D printing of pharmaceuticals is making this imagination possible, and it’s the new technology knocking at our door, closer to us than we ever imagined.

Over time, it could render traditional drug formulation and compounding methods obsolete, meaning all those processes of granulation, compaction, compression, etc., could soon become outdated. Who knows, maybe a time will come when teaching about mixing and de-mixing, or any other unit operation in pharmaceutics, becomes old-fashioned.

This new 3D technology, also referred to as additive manufacturing, is the process of creating personalized or customized medicines using 3D printing. It involves building up drug products layer by layer from a digital design, potentially offering tailored dosages, release profiles, and drug combinations. The idea first emerged in the 1980s, and by 1996 it had already been applied in the development of pharmaceuticals.

“Personalized treatments — combining multiple drugs into just one tablet or making child-friendly dosages — offer opportunities for better adherence, fewer side effects, and improved outcomes.”

One of the drug examples manufactured using this new technique is an epilepsy drug called Spritam. The product was made by a US company, Aprecia, and was licensed by the FDA in August 2015 before being launched onto the US market in 2016. This drug is made by 3D printers that print the solid tablet layer by layer to make it dissolve faster than average pills. The tablet, an oro-dispersible type meant to disperse in the mouth before swallowing, dissolved in an extraordinary 4.03 seconds — compared to the average 30 seconds for conventional oro-dispersible tablets.

And it’s getting faster. FabRx, a UK biotech company based in London and headed by Alvaro Goyanes – one of the most recognized figures in the field of 3D printing of medicines – announced that they have developed a system allowing them to 3D print tablets in just 7–17 seconds. At this rate, printing your medicine could take less time than scrolling through your WhatsApp status.

The Tech Behind the Magic

Various additive manufacturing methods are used for printing medication in this way, including:

  • Powder bed printing
  • Binder jet
  • Fused filament printing
  • Melt extrusion deposition
  • Selective laser sintering
  • Semi-solid extrusion
  • Stereolithography
  • Gel printing, among others

Some of these processes might be too sophisticated – involving lasers and the like – but let’s break one down.

In Powder Bed Printing, a thin layer of powdered medicine is spread out, a drop of liquid binder added to selectively glue the particles together and the process repeated a specific number of times, adding more layers based on the dosage, building the product from bottom to top until a full tablet is built, all these happening automatically inside the printer. The result? A solid, porous drug with excellent disintegration properties – or, as they like to say, it dissolves “with just a sip of water.”

In short, the raw material is placed in the printer, which then produces the required tablets in the right dose without changing the main characteristics of the raw material. In some cases, though, the printing process might change certain properties such as solubility – but mostly these changes actually improve the medicine. Not much of excipients are required in these methods of drug production, which minimizes the risk of side effects due to some additives.

Wondering if these printers make tablets only? Not at all. While tablets are the poster child for 3D-printed pharmaceuticals, this technology can produce virtually all solid dosage forms, including gels, as seen in one of the techniques above.

Dr. Michael Repka, Director of the PII Center for Pharmaceutical Technology, said, “They are definitely seeing it happening, and I can say they are very positive about it – but they might just wonder when it will be broadly available.”

Nigeria’s Reality Check on this New Technology

A patriotic citizen might ask, what stage are we in Nigeria regarding this new development? Well, to be honest, 3D printing of medicines is far from a reality here in Nigeria. But we remain optimistic, and with the amount of excellent pharmacy graduates the country produces annually, we might not be as far from it as we think – provided these great minds are given the resources they need.

The advantages of this method of drug manufacturing cannot be overemphasized: cutting production time, personalizing medicines to a patient’s specific medical profile, and making the most suitable dosage forms for pediatric and geriatric use. One key advantage, however, is the ability to combine multiple drugs into a single dosage form – eliminating the need for taking several separate pills every morning and night. This could greatly improve patient adherence, because let’s face it, no one likes taking a handful of pills every day.

But let’s be real, it’s not perfect. Like any new technology, it has its disadvantages. The cost of producing these so-called “drug printers” is high, and the method still has to meet strict regulatory requirements before approval. And while polypill printing is feasible, it works best for drugs with low therapeutic doses to ensure the final tablet isn’t too big for comfortable use.

3D printing in pharmaceutics is no longer just a concept – it’s a reality steadily moving from research labs to real-world applications. Sure, there are still hurdles to overcome ranging from cost, regulation, and scalability challenges. But its potential to change how we produce and take medicines is undeniable.

One day, “your prescription is ready” might just mean your pharmacist is firing up the printer. And when that day comes, the speed of Ctrl+P could very well be the speed of getting your medicines.

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