drug off the printer

Heidelberg University Hospital is testing technology from the start-up Digital Health Systems. The aim is to enable medicines to be dosed more precisely.

Heidelberg University Hospital has announced two clinical trials for drug printing technology from the Ulm-based start-up Digital Health Systems. The feasibility and suitability will be tested on 24 test subjects.

According to its own information, Digital Health Systems has found a way to print drugs in which the active ingredient is printed on yellow plates. This should allow medicines to be dosed more precisely - and, above all, less. This is currently impossible or very difficult with tablets or suppositories. This is a particular problem for children, according to the doctors. "While higher dosages can be easily achieved through multiple doses, the challenges are particularly great when administering very small quantities, as commercially available dosage forms have to be divided or crushed, drops counted or small volumes of liquid precisely measured," explains Walter Haefeli, Medical Director of the Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacoepidemiology at the UKHD, who is leading the study. If the technology works as planned, it should be incorporated into clinical routine as soon as possible.

The two-dimensional printing of drugs works like an inkjet printer: the "ink" contains the dissolved drug. It is applied by the pharmaceutical printer to a stamp-thin platelet that is water-soluble and dissolves in the mouth. The aim is to investigate how well the body can absorb the medicine and how low the dosage can be with this technology.

"Digital Health Systems' vision is to provide a complete system for the individual, personalized 2D and 3D printing of medicines," says Managing Director Christian Franken. "This includes not only the printers themselves, but also the entire system of inks containing active ingredients and the software." In future, it will also be possible to combine several active ingredients.