Advances in Study on Three-dimensional Printing in Pharmaceutics

Three dimensional printing (3DP) is a solid freeform fabrication technology which employs powder processing and a liquid binder material in the construction of parts in a layer-wise manner. 3DP can accommodate much geometric outline and be made with many materials due to its unprecedented flexibility. The technology can control over the material composition, microstructure and surface texture so it attracts great attentions in the pharmaceutics field. 3DP can offer many novel strategies and approaches for the research and is widely focused in the field of the controlled-release drug delivery systems. Through consulting a large number of documents the current development and the technical characteristics of 3DP in pharmaceutics field are discussed and reviewed. It is expected that 3DP technique may play a tremendous role in pharmaceutics field in the future.