Envisioning smart and sustainable healthcare: 3D Printing technologies for personalized medication

By adopting an organizational and managerial perspective, our exploratory study focuses on the context in which basic needs and opportunities of personalization in dosage forms mainly emerge: the stage of drug prescription and delivery processes that involve doctors, patients, and pharmacists. Obstacles, risks, and advantages of personalized medicine (PM) are discussed highlighting opportunities offered by the introduction of 3D printing technologies and conditions of success in terms of both effectiveness and cost of healthcare. Key findings lead to a possible model of synthesis in which the potential revolutionary role of drug 3D printing in pharmaceutical compounding and/or manufacturing is highlighted. A 3D printing empowered compounding pharmacy is an innovation we envision to progress toward smarter and more sustainable healthcare.