3D printed flexible bioesensing platform

Abstract

The concept of drug delivery has evolved over the years. From the form of immediate release oral-dosage, to targeted release drug delivery system. While most of the drugs adopts the oral-dosage ways, some medications cannot be delivered by oral administration due to its ease of degradation. Therefore, research efforts are targeting invasive methods of drug delivery that is being developed and introduced into the market such as transdermal patches. The transdermal route is utilised to deliver drugs through skin into systemic circulation. Its main advantages over oral dosage drug delivery includes controlled drug release with minimum side effects, suitable for administered drug having poor oral availability, avoidance of first-pass effect and many more. The production of these transdermal patches has conventionally been manufactured via a process that includes blending of drugs, coating of adhesive, backing lamination and die-cutting the patch followed by packing. This conventional manufacturing process of transdermal patch only allows each patch to be used once and disposal of these patches creates waste materials. This report experiments with an alternate way of manufacturing the transdermal patch via additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing. Stereolithography technology has been developed for many years and is widely used in biomedical and tissue engineering and one of its application is explored in pharmaceutical application. This report provides a brief summary of current techniques in manufacturing the transdermal patch and comprehensive analysis of the stereolithography apparatus method as it has good accuracy and thus be used for many areas. Research and results of SLA manufactured drug delivery platform for internal delivery applications are also described in this paper. Finally, the characterization of the additive manufactured product is also reviewed.