Merck is a German pharmaceutical company that boasts many years of experience in the medicine manufacturing industry. At the same time, Merck understands the need to implement innovative solutions, which is why the company decided to establish cooperation with AMCM, a sister company of EOS, one of the most reputable companies in the 3D printing industry. Together they will work on a 3D printed drug project in line with the principles of good manufacturing practices.
3D printing is to be an alternative to standard methods of drug production – currently companies are planning to create batches that can be made available for the clinical testing phase. The long-term plan, however, assumes the commercialization of the additive method of drug production and its use for mass production. Isabel de Paoliz Merck emphasizes that the new way of producing drugs is a huge step towards digitization, which may turn out to be a revolution for the entire pharmaceutical industry.
Marie Langer, CEO of EOS adds that the cooperation is based on Merck’s competence in drug formulation methods and AMCM’s many years of experience in the field of additive technology. Project work will help to make medicine production methods more flexible and optimized.
Specialists want to rely on the method of laser sintering powders, which allows you to simplify the clinical process of drug development. The technology also has the advantage of being able to scale production while avoiding costly changes in the entire pharmaceutical development and commercial production process. This will not only increase productivity, but also reduce production costs.
Fast serial production is also a step towards personalizing drugs and adapting their properties to the specific needs of patients. Specialists emphasize that along with the development and expansion of knowledge about the functioning of the human body of modern medicine, it is necessary to optimize drug production methods. Personalized production gives a wide range of possibilities – it allows not only to perfectly determine the dose of the medicinal substance, but also to replace several (or even a dozen) tablets with one containing all the necessary active substances.