title: Electrodeless electrohydrodynamic drop-on-demand encapsulation of drugs into porous polymer films for fabrication of personalized dosage units.
abstract: Noncontact drop-on-demand (DOD) dosing is a promising strategy for manufacturing of personalized dosage units. However, current DOD methods developed for printing chemically and thermally stable, low-viscosity inks are of limited use for pharmaceuticals due to fundamentally different functional requirements. To overcome their deficiency, we developed a novel electrohydrodynamic (EHD) DOD (Appl, Phys, Lett. 97, 233501, 2010) that operates on fluids of up to 30 Pa·s in viscosity over a wide range of droplet sizes and provides a precise control over the droplet volume. We now evaluate the EHD DOD as a method for fabrication of dosage units by printing drug solutions on porous polymer films prepared by freeze-drying. Experiments were carried out on ibuprofen and griseofulvin, as model poorly water-soluble drugs, polyethylene glycol 400, as a drug carrier, and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose films. The similarities between drug release profiles from different dosage units were assessed by model-independent difference, f(1) , and similarity, f(2) , factors. The results presented show that EHD DOD offers a powerful tool for the evolving field of small-scale pharmaceutical technologies for tailoring medicines to individual patient's needs by printing a vast array of predefined amounts of therapeutics arranged in a specific pattern on a porous film.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical, Biological, and Pharmaceutical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey 07102, USA.
authors.forename: Ezinwa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Elele
authors.forename: Yueyang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Ramana
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Susarla
authors.forename: Boris
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Khusid
authors.forename: Golshid
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Keyvan
authors.forename: Bozena
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Michniak-Kohn
mesh_terms: D004337:Drug Carriers / Q000737:chemistry*; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D005612:Freeze Drying; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D016062:Porosity; D012995:Solubility; D013678:Technology, Pharmaceutical / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014961:X-Ray Diffraction
chemical_list: D004337:Drug Carriers; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations; D011108:Polymers