Ibuprofen

Engineering

Biomedical engineering

Hydroxypropyl cellulose

Materials science

Ethyl cellulose

3D printing

Chemical engineering

Drug

Drug delivery

Pellets

Polymer

Nanotechnology

3d printed

Pharmacology

Composite material

Sintering

Medicine

Selective laser sintering

Pharmaceutics

Selective laser sintering (SLS) is a single-step three-dimensional printing (3DP) process that can be leveraged to engineer a wide array of drug delivery systems. The aim of this work was to utilise SLS 3DP, for the first time, to produce small oral dosage forms with modified release properties. As such, paracetamol-loaded 3D printed multiparticulates, termed miniprintlets, were fabricated in 1 mm and 2 mm diameters. Despite their large surface area compared with a conventional monolithic tablet, the ethyl cellulose-based miniprintlets exhibited prolonged drug release patterns. The possibility of producing miniprintlets combining two drugs, namely paracetamol and ibuprofen, was also investigated. By varying the polymer, the dual miniprintlets were programmed to achieve customised drug release patterns, whereby one drug was released immediately from a Kollicoat Instant Release matrix, whilst the effect of the second drug was sustained over an extended time span using ethyl cellulose. Herein, this work has highlighted the versatility of SLS 3DP to fabricate small and intricate formulations containing multiple active pharmaceutical ingredients with distinct release properties.

3D Printed Pellets (Miniprintlets): A Novel, Multi-Drug, Controlled Release Platform Technology