Oral dosage forms fabricated by Three Dimensional Printing™

Three Dimensional Printing(TM) is a novel technique used in the fabrication of complex oral dosage delivery pharmaceuticals. It is possible to engineer devices with complicated internal geometries, varying densities and diffusivities, and multiple actives and excipients. Samples were fabricated using this technique using standard pharmaceutical materials. Erosion mechanism delayed-release tablets were constructed with varying polymer content from 8.9 to 17.9%. Lag times varied between 25 and 50 min with a corresponding decrease in release rate as polymer content increased. Diffusion mechanism tablets were constructed with varying polymer content from 9.0 to 16.7%. The peak release rate decreased and the time to exhaustion increased with polymer content, whereas lag time was not affected. Active delivery studies with fluorescein indicated that Three Dimensional Printing is capable of accurately constructing dosage forms with active content as low as 10(-12) moles per tablet. Hardness and friability testing indicated that samples fabricated with this technique are comparable to other standard pharmaceutical products. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.