2026-09-22T08:38:42Zhttps://cora.ucc.ie/server/oai/request

oai:cora.ucc.ie:10468/164672024-10-01T02:04:35Zcom_10468_67com_10468_5com_10468_386com_10468_4com_10468_388com_10468_365com_10468_1col_10468_9857col_10468_9971col_10468_9859col_10468_9970col_10468_8983

2029-12-31 Moore, Anne Vucen, Sonja Wilkstein, Katerina HEA AIVRT 2024-09-30T17:22:36Z 2024-09-30T17:22:36Z 2024 2024 Dissolvable microneedles are an intradermal drug delivery technology with exciting potential for widespread distribution of minimally invasive, self-administered medicines and vaccines. The most popular manufacturing method for medical dissolvable microneedles is micromoulding, a process which can have drawbacks of low material efficiency and high regulatory requirements. The UCC-patented “ImmuPatch” process is a micromoulding method which significantly improves on the material efficiency of traditional micromoulding. In this study, a specific method based upon the ImmuPatch process was developed for aseptic manual fabrication of two-layered dissolvable microneedles capable of incorporating at 2 μg protein dose. The developed method was not ideal, with high variability in the patches produced and significant challenges in verifying the protein dose. Fabrication of dissolvable microneedles is well positioned for the application of automation methods. One proposed option for the automation of dissolvable microneedle manufacture is additive manufacturing, which in addition to automation has the advantage of eliminating the regulatory challenges associated with micromoulding. A systematic literature review of methods applying additive manufacturing to the fabrication of solid dosage formats was conducted and identified processing parameters and format properties associated with different technologies. Additive manufacturing has been applied to micromould-free dissolvable microneedle fabrication in limited examples and should be explored further. Not peer reviewed Accepted Version application/pdf Wilkstein, K. 2024. Dissolvable microneedle manufacturing methods and the application of three-dimensional printing to pharmaceuticals. MRes Thesis, University College Cork. 165 https://hdl.handle.net/10468/16467 en University College Cork © 2024, Katerina Wilkstein. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Microneedles Vaccines Vaccine Three-dimensional printing 3d printing Additive manufacturing Process design Process scale up Ergonomic safety Process optimisation Pharmaceutical process Dissolvable microneedle manufacturing methods and the application of three-dimensional printing to pharmaceuticals Masters thesis (Research) Masters MRes - Master of Researchinfo:eu-repo/semantics/embargoedAccess