NUS Engineering team develops novel technology to "print" customised tablets for personalised medicine

PR64563

SINGAPORE, May 26, 2016 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have

found a way to make personalised medicine cheaper and easier. Imagine if you

could combine the myriad of pills you need to take for your ailment in just one

tablet; or if you need only to take the medication once a day and the drug will

be slowly released throughout the day at different rates to treat your illness;

or if doctors could easily make tablets on the spot that are tailored to each

patient's needs.

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All these could become a reality with a new method of tablet fabrication

designed by Assistant Professor Soh Siowling and PhD student Ms. Sun Yajuan

from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the NUS Faculty

of Engineering. The novel system can make customisable pills that release drugs

with any desired release profiles.

Customised tablets for optimal therapeutic results

Releasing drugs in a timely manner is important for optimal therapeutic effect

in the human body. Different types of clinical circumstances may call for

different types of timed release of drugs.

While there are some existing tablet-production methods, including 3D printing,

that can allow certain flexibility, they have their limitations -- low dosage,

release profiles that are non-continuous, or the drugs are released in a large

burst in the initial stage, and poor durability of the tablet given its quick

breakdown. These methods are also only able to fabricate tablets that release

drugs with a limited type of profiles.

A fully customisable fabrication method

"For a long time, personalised tablet has been a mere concept as it was far too

complex or expensive to be realised. This new tablet fabrication method is a

game changer -- it is technically simple, relatively inexpensive and versatile.

It can be applied at individualised settings where physicians could produce

customised pills on the spot for patients, or in mass production settings by

pharmaceutical companies," said Asst Prof Soh.

Instead of manufacturing the drug tablet by printing layer by layer, the drug

tablet designed by the NUS team consists of three components, including a

polymer containing the drug in a specifically designed shape that will

determine the rate of release of the drug. By adjusting the shape of the

drug-containing polymer, it is thus possible to release drugs at any desired

rate.

Using the system designed by the NUS team, a doctor only needs to draw the

desired release profile in a computer software to generate a template for

making tablets specific to a patient's treatment, which can then be used to

easily produce the desired pills using a 3D printer. The system is easy to use

and does not involve any complex mathematical computation whenever a new

release profile is needed. The fully customisable system is able to create a

template to print tablets for any release profile.

The use of a commercially available 3D printer in this method also makes it a

relatively cheap way of making personalised medicine a reality.

In drug delivery, it is also important to administer more than one type of drug

into the human body simultaneously to treat an illness. This fabrication method

can also be modified to include multiple types of drugs loaded within the same

tablet -- and more importantly, each drug can be customised to release at

different rates even within the same tablet.

For more information:

http://news.nus.edu.sg/press-releases/10439-customised-tablets-personalised-medicine

SOURCE  National University of Singapore