Evonik and Laxxon to Produce More Effective 3D Printed Pills

Evonik Venture Capital, which deals with all kinds of applications related to the use of 3D technologies, has announced its investment in the Nevada-based Laxxon Medical. The goal: to produce 3D-printed tablets that will improve patient health thanks to better drug delivery. Since Evonik already has decades of experience in the field of active medical ingredients, it was an obvious choice for the company to invest in Laxxon. After all, the Nevada-based company has just developed a 3D screen-printing technology that makes it possible to produce structured tablets which can control the release of active pharmaceutical ingredients over time. In addition, this technology also allows multiple ingredients to be combined into a single tablet. This would take medicine to a whole new level.

Evonik has already been able to improve the medical field through its technologies for years and the production of special excipients, an inactive substance serving as the vehicle for a drug, among other things, is also high on the company’s agenda. For example, they found that the use of polymers can influence, for example, the time at which the active ingredient is released: whether immediately after ingestion, after a certain delay, or constantly over a longer period of time, a major advance in modern medicine.

Evonik expects this investment to accelerate its market activities (photo credits: Evonik)

Working Together to Improve the Medical Market

Laxxon was founded in 2017 by Helmut Kerschbaumer, Klaus Kühne and Achim Schneeberger in Switzerland, but the company is now headquartered in the USA and has a German and Swiss subsidiary. Using their new 3D screen printing technology, tablets can be easily produced with different active and inactive layers. The advantage of this structure of the drugs are two fold. On the one hand, it can enable individual releases of the active ingredient with only one tablet, meaning that depending on the needs of hte patient the drugs could be released immediately after being swallowed, after a certain delay or in a sustainaned release over time. This of course would increase the effectiveness of the drug in a patient’s bloodstream.