Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

1-1-2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences

Department

Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery

First Advisor

Michael A. Repka

Second Advisor

Chalet Tan

Third Advisor

Soumyajit Majumdar

Relational Format

dissertation/thesis

Abstract

Three-dimensional printing (3DP) provides a flexible and cost-beneficial solution to patient-centric medicine and its potential to challenge current pharmaceutical supply chains. Fusion deposition modeling (FDM) is one of the most commonly applied 3D printing techniques in pharmaceutical study. But the poor mechanical properties of printing filaments have limited mainly the application of FDM 3D printing in the pharmaceutical area. In this dissertation, the development of texture analysis methods to evaluate the printability of filaments was investigated first. The parameter “Stiffness” was successfully developed to measure and predict the printability of filaments in the direct-extrude FDM printer. Then, the combination of hot-melt extrusion (HME) and 3DP technologies was applied to fabricate 16 kinds of tablets with different geometries and polymer matrices. Release kinetics and correlation between the mean dissolution time (MDT) and surface area to volume (SA/V) ratio were studied. A comprehensive understanding of the influence of different structures and matrices on drug release was obtained. Finally, Two-APIs pulsatile release tablets were successfully produced by FDM and HME technologies. The correlation between the thickness of the first layer and the second drug release time was also studied, and a good correlation was obtained.

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