ABSTRACT

Dear Reader,

Pharmaceutical manufacturing has, for over a century, run on a simple concept: make one formulation, in one strength, at enormous scale. However, the medical fraternity knows how uneasily this sits alongside the reality of patients, who differ enormously in body weight, metabolism, renal function and disease severity, especially children, the elderly, and anyone managing several chronic conditions at once. Threedimensional printing, or additive manufacturing, is now offering a genuine alternative to this one-size-fits-all approach: a dosage form built layer by layer, with a dose, release profile and even shape specified for a single patient.