Personalized
Medicine
A top 5 pharmaceutical company wanted to be at the forefront of the personalized medicine revolution. That's when they reached out to AI dev to take on this difficult but compelling project.
A Manufacturing Challenge
Our client needed to manufacture small batches of personalized tablets but had trouble meeting the very tight specifications required for size, shape and weight.
Conventionally, tablets are mass-manufactured using an extremely standardized process. While this leads to reliable uniformity and global-scale mass production, it's the exact opposite of what's needed for personalized medicine.
The Potential Solution: 3D Printing
While 3D printing is ideal for personalized manufacturing, it's not a mature technology. Using 3D printers to manufacture medicine is new and unproven.
We turned to a cutting-edge method of 3D printing - bioprinting - in which the tablet begins as a viscous material inside a syringe, then is extruded in the shape of a tablet using precision air-pressure.
The Battle for High Precision
Standard bioprinting wouldn't come close to the uniformity requirements. Even more challenging, some materials were non-Newtonian, which makes achieving consistent and reliable extrusion a Herculean task.
Achieving the Impossible
Custom Firmware Development
We customized the 3D printer firmware to allow precise control over movement and extrusion pressure, enabling fine-tuned adjustments impossible with standard equipment.
Material Behavior Database
We built a detailed database of material characteristics and behaviors, including non-Newtonian materials, creating a foundation for intelligent extrusion control.
Simulated Manufacturing
Deep learning analysis allowed us to conduct tablet manufacturing runs in a simulated environment, which we used to dramatically improve real-world results before physical testing.
Intelligent Visual Monitoring
We developed a system to adjust material extrusion to pinpoint scientific standards by using an intelligent camera to continuously monitor and measure extrusions in real-time.
Dynamic Pressure Control
Real-time visual data gave us the ability to create automated dynamic air pressure control, thereby obtaining micron-level accuracy in tablet production.
Multiple outside companies made the attempt, but only AI dev brought tablet production within the required margin of error, demonstrating what was possible and spurring further research into personalized medicine.