Hot embossing and mechanical punching of biodegradable microcontainers for oral drug delivery

•Si stamp with pillars using the standard Si manufacturing techniques is fabricated.•The stamp is embossed in biodegradable polymer film to fabricate microholes.•Mechanical punches are produced using wire electrical discharge milling.•The film with microholes is punched to fabricate microcontainers for drug delivery.•Fabrication process described here is versatile, drug-friendly and mass producible.

A process has been developed to fabricate discrete three-dimensional microcontainers for oral drug delivery application in Poly-l-Lactic Acid (PLLA) polymer. The method combines hot embossing for the definition of holes in a PLLA film and mechanical punching to penetrate the polymer layer around the holes, after filling them with drug. Here, we demonstrate the fabrication of microcontainers with a diameter of 340 μm and a height of 50 μm. The process is temperature benign so that the compositional integrity of the drug is preserved. It also provides a good flexibility for creating different sizes and shapes of microcontainers. Finally, the process is compatible with roll-to-roll processing that could lead to low cost high volume production.

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