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International Journal of Bioprinting Advances for 3D-printed oral drug delivery systems

Digital technologies examine advances in this field.
Currently, the most innovative industries are rapidly
migrating toward digitalization. In the pharmaceutical
industry, important efforts for the implementation of
digital technologies throughout 3D printing processes
are growing. In this study, a category focused on digital
technologies is examined.

CTI is a strategic and systematic process that focuses
on monitoring the technical and competitive environment
of an organization at different levels, with the purpose of
providing actionable information for decision making in
the areas of technology, innovation, product design, R&D,
and markets (global, national, and local) .
[29]
Through CTI, it is possible to identify available
opportunities that can be used to predict future trends,
generating competitive advantages. Its continuous
Figure 1. Types of 3D printing oral dosage forms. process is assisted by a diversity of tools and qualitative
and quantitative methods that facilitate the acquisition,
is to uncover advances in the following categories: end- extraction, collection, visualization, and interpretation of
user applications, quality assurance, user acceptability, the information.
and digital technologies for 3D printing of oral DDS. To
this end, a competitive technology intelligence (CTI) 2. Methodology
methodology was applied to reveal the current scientific
and technological advances in the field. In this research, the methodology applied is that proposed
by Rodriguez-Salvador and Castillo-Valdez in 2021, which
In this research, end-user applications refer to the consists of an eight-step process with interdependent
use of 3D-printed oral DDS to meet the specific end- phases and continuous feedback: (i) project planning,
user needs, such as designing dosage forms that are (ii) identification of data sources, (iii) search strategy
user-friendly to visually-impaired patients, creating non- design, (iv) data collection, (v) information analysis,
commercially available formulations for pediatric patients, (vi) expert feedback, (vii) validation and final results, and
and conceiving novel solutions to target global problems, (viii) decision making .
[30]
such as drug abuse.
Quality assurance focuses on methods, protocols, and Primary and secondary sources were determined to
tools to guarantee quality during the preparation and gather information. The primary sources were international
experts in the field of 3D printing. The secondary source
fabrication of 3D-printed dosage forms. It is a common was scientific literature from Web of Science (WoS), which
concern in 3D-printed oral DDS, but unfortunately there includes more than 21,000 peer-reviewed journals and
is no specific US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 17.2 million open access records .
[31]
guideline for 3D-printed medicines, which are usually
fabricated according to chemistry, manufacturing, and Terms and keywords related to 3D printing of oral DDS
control (CMC) standards, Good Manufacturing Practices and data subjects were identified and manually validated.
(GMP), and regulatory processes for pharmaceutical drug These terms include words related to 3D printing, delivery
product applications from the US FDA Center for Drug systems, type of dosage forms, and pharmaceutical area.
Evaluation and Research (CDER) . In addition, exclusion terms were identified manually to
[28]
exclude irrelevant documents. These terms were integrated
On the other hand, user acceptability analyzes user-
centered needs, exploring the real demands of the user, into a query with a period corresponding to January 1,
1900, to May 1, 2023. The document types were limited
including preferences and palatability. This can facilitate to articles, proceeding papers, and early-access articles.
the introduction of 3D-printed orally administered The query was validated by international experts in 3D
drugs to the market and increase the acceptability of printing. Figure 2 illustrates the generated query.
these novel treatments. For this reason, user acceptability
should be considered. A total of 621 publications were retrieved from the
query; after the manual inspection, the total number of
papers was reduced to 512. These documents were classified

Volume 9 Issue 6 (2023) 504 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijb.1119