Printing Drugs on Delivery Devices
University of Michigan engineers have developed a means of printing drugs onto skin patches, ingestible strips or other means of medication delivery. The technique is so described: “Using a method called organic vapor-jet printing, a drug in the form of a powder is heated into a gas and combined with an inert gas. The combination of the two gasses is directed in a fine stream onto a cold surface. As the drug condenses on this surface, it forms a crystalline layer that remains stable. This drug layer can be tuned to have different characteristics, depending on the use case. What’s important is that throughout this process no solvents are used that can inhibit the functionality of the drug. Moreover, distributing a drug over a fairly large area, instead of being compacted inside a difficult to dissolve tablet or pill, can help it to enter the body more easily.” MORE WITH VIDEO
Image Credit: University of Michigan and MedGaget.com