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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.
What kind of "outbreak" would require any of those medications: Valium, Prozac, Benadryl, and Lidocaine ???
I predict Cleveland Ohio will see such an outbreak this July. We may see one on a national level in November as well.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Just how far are we from Niven's autodocs now? We could medicate the psychopaths among us, so instead of becoming CEOs that steal and plunder ever more, we could neutralize their harmful tendencies humanely, and finally usher in the post-industrial leisure society?
Mostly random stuff.
Okay, that was really funny.
I was also thinking it is probably important to check out the guy in line in front of you and maybe switch places if it looks like psycho active or hormone replacement case.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
...this is better than using manual pill molds plus drying/baking...how?
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
So how much longer until we have actual Atomic 3D Printers?
:T:R:A:N:S:
This is slashdot. This is an article about 3D printing. That is all.
Can it be used to economically produce Daraprim, and also would Martin Shkreli be hurt in any way if one of these machines, programmed to make Daraprim pills, were to fall on his head?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
What kind of "outbreak" would require any of those medications: Valium, Prozac, Benadryl, and Lidocaine ???
Anything causing massive anxiety, depression, cardiac arrhythmias and allergies.
We have those problems all of the time. Don't you?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Because giving people jobs is so 19th century.
This would be the first vending machine to take thousand-dollar bills.
Imagine when the form factor shrinks so much that the machine can be implanted directly into the body.
We sort of already have such machines in a very specialized sense. The pancreas creating insulin, pituitary gland producing endorphins, the adrenal gland creating adrenaline, etc. So it shouldn't take that much imagination.
the challenges in supplying medications, for example regions without facilities for storing pills
How hard is it to store pills, FFS? So they will need a facility to store this machine instead then. Sales talk at its finest.
Producing less than 50 pills an hour? This would not be any good for anything but the smallest drug stores, and they have no need for it. This would be awful in an epidemic.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I read about this yesterday, assumed it was BS.
Lidocaine has me curious. When is a topical analgesic useful as a pill?
OK, this is a medium-sized pill processor that can be made up to dispense, out of some level of raw materials, pills. Some of the raw materials (whether they are fully-synthesized, nearly-so, or in base stock) will need to be kept cold in places where this sort of thing makes sense.
So instead of shipping one of these do-dads that can do one thing at a time (and takes HOURS to switch over to a new product), why not ship a refrigerator filled with boxes of fully-finished pills? Surely the reliability is higher. Since refrigerators are mature technology, I have to imagine that they would have more fractional volume available for carrying pills than a complicated synthesizing machine.
For a permanently installed location, you would have to ship raw materials to the unit. For a refrigerator, you would have to ship pills. Is there a significant difference?
Can someone convince me that the idea isn't just a boondoggle? What advantages does it have?
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Because giving people jobs is so 19th century.
You want lots of jobs? Fine: ban the use of all power equipment in construction. Presto, millions of jobs, everything from digging ditches to lifting and carrying materials by hand.
While we're on the subject of automation for pharmaceuticals, I've been wondering lately if druggists' jobs couldn't be a lot more automated. Instead of dispensing and counting out pills by hand, why couldn't it be done like surface mount devices: tape and reel? Have your pick and place dispensing machine automatically mount the correct pill reel, count out the right number of pills into a bottle, label it, and you're done.
If it can print Vicodins, I'll take 2.
sore throat maybe?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I guess you've never heard about the vending machines that offer one ounce gold coins.
Or ten packs of 1 ounce, 1/2 ounce, 1/4 ounce, or 1/10 ounce gold coins.
What kind of "outbreak" would require any of those medications: Valium, Prozac, Benadryl, and Lidocaine ???
Probably the election of Donald Trump as president.
the machine makes suspensions, drugs in liquid.
in case of outbreak or loss of supply chain, where will they get their raw materials? this is not ready for prime time by any stretch.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Make this machine produce MDMA pills and I can guarantee its success.
MDMA is also known as ecstasy, or molly.
What kind of "outbreak" would require any of those medications: Valium, Prozac, Benadryl, and Lidocaine ???
It's people like you that convinced the venture capitalists not to fund the Wrights' research because the Flyer didn't have a cargo compartment for passengers' luggage.
This is a first design, producing known drugs for which there is a reliable synthesis mechanism that can be employed in a "raw materials in here, drug out here" continuous-flow process. Now that they have a basic design that works, they can expand it to incorporate other synthesis processes.
Or just do what made workers in other countries so sought after in the first place and devalue the currency... But that's just crazy talk!
And you don't really write things on your computer, you type it
And get crappier buildings because it's hard to make a modern good building without decent tools.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The difference between this machine and the industrial level is smaller than you think, the jobs in the pharmacy industry isn't the manufacturing, it's the research.
If anything this machine may create more qualified jobs.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Lidocaine would be useful in treatment of various problems. A topical lidocaine ointment would be applied to an area prior to performing any work on the area. Benadyrl might be helpful. Valium and Prozac are very different to me. I think that they selected formulas that have been around for a long time.
If you have a steady supply of electricity, the refrigerator-sized machine needed to supply pills is called a "refrigerator". If you don't have a steady supply of electricity, a complex gadget like this will be worthless in a disaster.
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