GSK-funded project will print APIs onto tablets
pharmafile | June 14, 2010 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development | GlaxoSmithKline, manufacturing, production, tablets
Researchers at GlaxoSmithKline and two UK universities are working on a technology that could allow active pharmaceutical ingredients to be printed onto tablets like ink onto paper.
At the moment tablets tend to be made by compacting powdered ingredients – including APIs and various excipients – in a tablet press. Printing the actives directly onto tablets could boost production speeds, allow more precise dosing and even make it easier for multiple APIs to be included in a single tablet.
The approach could also make medicines which exert their effects faster, as the actives would be absorbed more quickly from the surface compared to the core of a tablet.
GSK has already developed a process which seems to work, but only for around 0.5% of APIs, effectively only those which are highly soluble in water.
Now, it hopes the new collaboration with Durham and Leeds Universities could expand the scope of the process to include less-soluble and even insoluble compounds, perhaps making it suitable for as much as 40% of all APIs.
The challenge lies in packing enough API molecules into the droplets that are used – much like ink – to print onto the tablets, according to Dr Nik Kapur from Leeds University’s Faculty of Engineering.
“Some active ingredients can be dissolved in a liquid, which then behaves like normal ink, so then the process is fairly straightforward,” explains Dr Kapur. “However, when you’re working with active ingredients that don’t dissolve, the particles of the drug are suspended in the liquid, which creates very different properties and challenges for use within a printing system.
For some tablets higher concentrations of active ingredients would need to be added to create the right dose, and this will affect how the liquid behaves, said Kapur.
Because a medicine droplet is 20 times larger than an ink droplet in a standard ink-jet system the research is looking at the properties and behaviour of compounds in suspension, as well as the shape and size of the printing nozzle and ways to pump the suspension through the printing equipment.
And with some of the current quality assurance procedures rendered unnecessary, new drugs would reach patients much faster.
“One of the major challenges is ensuring that each tablet contains the correct dose,” according to the researchers. This is currently done by statistically checking samples from each batch of pills post-production, but a printed system would enable quality control of each pill as it is produced.
The research is jointly funded by GSK and the UK government-funded Technology Strategy Board and will run for two years.
Phil Taylor
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