The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the world’s first 3D-printed pill for production.
Referred to as “Spritam”, the drug was developed by Aprecia Pharmaceuticals to control seizures brought on by epilepsy.
By 3D printing the pill, the company explains it is able to layer the medication more tightly in precise dosages. At max, it can package up to 1,000 milligrams into individual tablets.
For those curious, Spritam dissolves the same way as other oral medicines.
“In my experience, patients and caregivers often have difficulty following a treatment regimen. Whether they are dealing with a swallowing disorder or the daily struggle of getting a child to take his or her medication, adherence can be a challenge,” said Marvin H. Rorick III, M.D. neurologist at Riverhills Neuroscience in Cincinnati, Ohio. “Especially for children and seniors, having an option for patients to take their medication as prescribed is important to managing this disease.”
Beyond being able to pack a higher concentration of medicine into ingestible pill-form, this approval will give doctors the flexibility to more precisely adjust dosage levels within the pills themselves, simply by making adjustments to the software prior to the pill being produced. This approach is vastly different from how things have been done in the past few decades, where pills are manufactured in factories and shipped to hospitals / pharmacies to be doled out with specific dosage instructions. Any sort of one-off, specially-designed medicine for an individual was not only terribly pricey, it was also time consuming to produce. Aprecia Pharmaceuticals technological solution appears to bypass all of these issues, in a manner safe enough to garner the approval of the FDA.
Looking ahead, Spritam will launch in the first quarter of 2016. In the meantime, Apercia has stated it plans on developing other medications using its 3D platform.
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