3D printing of PVA capsular devices for modified drug delivery: design and in vitro dissolution studies

Abstract

The fabrication through FDM 3D printing of hollow systems intended for oral drug delivery constitutes an attractive technology to change personalized medications in the compounding pharmacy. In this sense, this work studied the design and 3D printing of one compartment capsular devices filled of drugs that could require a delayed release mechanism. The optimization of printing parameters such as material flow rate and printing speed by means of simple gcode modifications, resulted critical to allow the production of PVA capsular devices in a single manufacturing process. In addition, the disintegration and dissolution studies of the obtained capsular device confirmed the existence of a delayed drug release compared to commercial hard-gelatin capsules. Furthermore, the use of sinkers in the dissolution tests resulted in similar dissolution profiles regardless the rotation speed. Finally, Gompertz and Weibull equations were the kinetic models that best fitted the experimental data corresponding to immediate release with lag time type profiles. Overall, this work provides insights to understand the effect of the printing parameters on the production of PVA capsular devices and suggests a simple design and single manufacturing process that can be adopted in the future compounding pharmacy.

Keywords:

• 3D printing
• fused deposition modeling
• printer parameters
• PVA-capsular devices
• compounding pharmacy

Acknowledgments

The authors also express their gratitude to Eugenia Fiordelli and Eng. Diego Colaneri for their technical assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors express their gratitude for the financial support by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) [grant number PIP 11220150100704CO], Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (ANPCyT) [grant number PICT 2016-1827] and Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS) of Argentina [grant number PGI 24M/139].