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Refrigerator-Sized Machine Can Print Pills on Demand (dailymail.co.uk)
MIT Researchers have created a new "Pharmacy on Demand" prototype that can produce 1,000 doses of medication every 24 hours. Their new system "can be easily transported in case of outbreaks, supply shortage or if a manufacturing plant shuts down," notes the Daily Mail, and the on-demand technology can address many of the challenges in supplying medications, for example regions without facilities for storing pills. "The dosages don't have to have long-term stability," says the head of MIT's Chemistry department. "People line up, you make it, and they take it." The DARPA-funded researchers produced Valium, Prozac, Benadryl, and lidocaine, and demonstrated that "Within a few hours we could change from one compound to the other." The machine can also switch to a different drug type within a few hours, making it economical to produce drugs needed by only a small number of patients.
More drugs than people realize should be dosed in proportion to the patient's weight. Physicians often go for the closest size of pill to make it easier for the patient; if we could have a machine automatically print the pills of an exact size every month, that could be an important change.
It would be interesting to see if it can do some of the new tamper-resistant coatings as well.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
This is a proof of concept flow synthesizer that makes the APIs (chemical compounds) and then formulates them with excipients to make the pills. Flow synthesis is definitely going to become more and more useful, but for emergency situations it's absolutely useless. You'd be much better off sending a 50 gallon carboy full of drugs then an easily damaged frig size synthesizer, drums full of solvents and reagents, a generator and gas to run it, etc. It's like sending a 3D printer on a camping trip instead of a box of plastic cutlery.