3D screen printing pharmaceutical products and drugs increases sustainability and reduces waste while delivering a superior product to patients.
Traditionally, when you think of 3D printing, the first thing that comes to mind is small plastic components. Still, the world of 3D printed pharmaceuticals such as pills and tablets is growing at an incredible rate.
In the following article, we’ll be looking at the environmental impact of 3D printing on the pharmaceutical industry, including:
Reducing Material Waste
Reducing Energy Usage and Increasing Sustainability
The Advantages of Localized Production
To learn more about the advantages 3D printing offers the pharmaceutical industry, check out this article on the Advantages of 3D Printing In Pharmaceuticals.
The Environmental Impact of 3D Screen Printing
The traditional pharmaceutical manufacturing process involves extremely large-scale batch production of drugs and pharmaceuticals. After all, the economy of scale determines that the more of something you make, the cheaper the product becomes.
However, if a batch of products goes wrong, is contaminated, or is completed incorrectly, you have many waste products that need to be destroyed.
That’s not to mention excess products that are produced with limited expiration dates and ultimately end up being destroyed.
1. Reducing Material Waste
A significant advantage the 3D printing of pharmaceutical products offers the pharmaceutical industry is reduced waste. 3D screen printing is less wasteful compared to traditional batch creation of pharmaceutical products. Large-scale batch production means that when mistakes are made, large-scale losses occur.
By reducing the scale of the operation using 3D screen printing, you’re reducing the chances of mistakes being made, and when or if there is a mistake, the impact on production is much lower.
The 3D printing process is much more precise and efficient, with less raw material wastage.
2. Reducing Energy Usage and Increasing Sustainability
Manufacturers, including those in the pharmaceutical industry, are under increasing regulatory and consumer pressure to reduce energy usage and lower the impact of manufacturing on the environment, all while improving sustainability.
Traditional manufacturing is a large-scale operation that requires a lot of infrastructure, energy, and water and creates a significant environmental footprint, while 3D printing is the opposite.
The precision and customization of 3D printing means that manufacturers can customize operations to suit demand while minimizing their environmental impact through more streamlined operations and systems.
Creating large batches of products and switching between different products involves a lot of cleaning between products. 3D screen printing is a much cleaner process, requiring less clean-up while allowing manufacturers to switch between products faster.
3. The Advantages of Localized Production
The traditional large-scale production of pharmaceutical products involves sourcing multiple ingredients from around the world, packaging and shipping them to production facilities, creating the products, and then shipping them again to be packaged before they’re ultimately shipped to their final destination.
It’s not uncommon for the materials and ingredients of pharmaceutical products to travel through multiple countries as they are made, packaged, and then sold.
For example, ingredients from Locations A, B, and C are all shipped to the manufacturing facilities in Location D. Those ingredients are then turned into their final product and returned to Location A, B, or C for packaging. The final product is then shipped again to multiple countries, including A, B, and C, for sale and distribution. It’s a lot of back and forth, all involving transportation by land, air, or sea, which puts a significant toll on the environment.
Now, imagine instead of that, you had a smaller manufacturing and packaging facility in each location, with base ingredients sent to the local 3D printing facility and drugs being produced and packaged on demand for consumers. It would eliminate much of the added shipping, increasing sustainability and reducing environmental costs.
Revolutionizing the Pharmaceutical Industry
The 3D printing of drugs and other pharmaceutical products has the potential to revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry while reducing costs and producing a more environmentally friendly and sustainable product.
It also allows for more customization in 3D-printed products. Thanks to Laxxon Medical’s SPID®-Technology, QR codes can now be printed directly to individual pills, which opens up a world of benefits to patients and healthcare professionals.
To learn more about the potential benefits of 3D printing and QR codes, check out the Advantages of QR Codes in the Pharmaceutical Industry.
Laxxon Medical is dedicated to engineering patented 3D pharmaceutical solutions that optimize products and benefit patients. Our goal is to establish SPID®-Technology as a manufacturing process with the individual and the pharmaceutical partner in mind.
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