Impresión 3D: una nueva era de la medicina personalizada

Abstract

The healthcare industry is evolving toward the development of a more personalized medicine. The traditional approach of “one-size-fits-all” is becoming a thing of the past, and new innovative platforms are required to produce tailored medicines. Conventional manufacturing processes based on mass manufacture are unsuitable to produce personalized medicines, since an increasing need is arising for the pharmaceutical industry to adapt and embrace new technologies for tailored therapy production. In this sense, additive manufacturing could reshape the way that medicines are manufactured due to its capability to produce bespoke medicines tailored to the individual needs of each patient. The unprecedented flexibility of additive manufacturing allows the production of printlets with different shapes, sizes, and geometries on-demand, directly at the point of care. In an early-phase drug development, this technology could be exploited to produce small batches of formulations adapted to the requirements of the study. However, several regulatory and quality control requirements must be overcome before the full implementation of additive manufacturing into practice. Meanwhile, additive manufacturing technologies are still evolving, and the advent of 4D printing will allow the development of “smart medicines” that provide new strategies to improve targeted therapies. In near future, the opportunities of additive manufacturing as a manufacturing platform can be fully exploited to produce customized pharmaceutical products both in the pharmaceutical industry and in clinical practice