3D printing in Pharmacy

Abstract

3D printing is a tool that is being harnessed in the pharmaceutical industry and new implementations and concepts are being developed especially in the tailored dose industry. 3D printing can be used in dosage form manufacturing. The objectives were to give an overview of 3D printing in pharmacy, to find the best tablet shape with the best disintegration results, to compare incubation times of passive diffusion of amitriptyline on Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), to see if an ethanol mixture with a low concentration of amitriptyline can drug load a PVA tablet and to analyse the amount of amitriptyline loaded on PVA via High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Different shapes for tablets to be used for 3D printing were compared according to their surface area to volume ratio. HPLC analysis of amitriptyline was carried out. Loading of amitriptyline in ethanol was performed on PVA for 24 and 72 hours. Determination of amitriptyline drug loading in a PVA tablet via HPLC analysis was carried out. This project was carried out in the Department of Pharmacy laboratory at the University of Malta. The results determined the disintegration time of tablets with different dimensions and shapes was determined. The tablet design with the shortest disintegration time was the small flat torus with a cross for a hole. The buffer mixture containing 65 % phosphate buffer pH 7 and 35 % acetonitrile was chosen as the mobile phase for reverse phase HPLC analysis. When using HPLC amitriptyline eluted at 6 minutes. Analysis of the drug loaded PVA tablets did not showcase the amitriptyline peak in the chromatogram and therefore the passive diffusion method did not work.