Three-dimensional printing technology

Figure 3 Breakaway tablets prepared by three-dimensional printing technology, showing in upper figure the principle and in the lower actual tablets at an intermediate stage of separation and in finally separated form.

A novel method for producing ER formulations is a technology called three-dimensional printing (TheriForm technology) [147], which is similar to the one used in ordinary printers. The ink is here replaced with an active substance and carrier material. The layer-by-layer printing provides controlled placement of the active drug and thus of the release from the device [148],... 

Three-dimensional printing 3D printing or 3DP) is a rapid prototyping (RP) technique that was developed in 1992 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) [109]. In contrast to 3D plotting of hot polymer melts, 3DP uses CAD models that can be obtained with a personal computer [110]. 3DP is a layered fabrication process in which a layer of powder is spread onto the powder bed on which the model will be created. Then a print head ejects... 

Three-dimensional printing can be used to create resorbable devices with complex concentration profiles within the device (65). This method belongs to solid freeform fabrication methods. Both macrostructure and microstructure can be controlled. The application of this technology for the fabrication of polymeric drug delivery systems has been elucidated. 

E.M. Sachs, J.S. Haggerty, M.J. Cima, and P.A. Williams, Three-dimensional printing techniques, US Patent 5 204 055, assigned to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA), April 20,1993. 

Many tissues have been produced in the lab, including heart, lung, liver, and kidney tissues cartilage and bone. Technologies such as three-dimensional printing of biomaterials have been demonstrated to produce a variety of tissues in the lab. 

Printing technology kept up with further development of the two- and three-dimensional chemical graphs which not only aided visualization of the molecules, but actually came to be depended on by chemists to express their ideas. As the number of known compounds grew, it became necessary to begin cataloging them. 

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