Digital health - digital 2D/3D printing of personalized medication

Without any doubt the young technology of additive manufacturing, including 2D and 3D printing, has been changing the world. A wide spectrum of objects in medical and pharmaceutical field can already be successfully printed. This ranges from a detailed figure in the micrometer regime to a full size residential house unit made from concrete [Sakin et al., 2017; Doherty et al., 2020]. In the pharmaceutical sector, additive manufacturing offers the option of medication customization [Pravin et al., 2018]. Integrating this new technology has several advantages over the current, well-established but outdated “one-size-fits-all” approach. Besides avoiding medication errors, printing tailored oral dosage forms is financially attractive for small scale on-demand production [Awad et al., 2018]. The development of dosage forms, production of sample batches and modification of samples can be done with little effort compared to generic powder-pressed pills which require heavy pharmaceutical machinery [Awad et al., 2018; Dachtler et al., 2020]. To further progress and to create the legal framework for the approval of additively manufactured drugs it requires a paradigm change of stakeholders who have the power to make decisions and changes [Horst et al., 2019].