In Villejuif, near Paris, the Gustave Roussy Anticancer Institute has just invested in a very special printer. Its specificity is to manufacture capsules, tablets, but also drugs in many other forms.
Like this sort of little yellow pebble that Lucas Denis holds in his hand and which today is the pride of all his colleagues at the Gustave Roussy Institute pharmacy. “It’s a small chewing gum that is, to the eye, 3 millimeters in diameterpresents the pharmacy intern. It contains corticosteroids, everything that is prednisone for inflammatory diseases or for catch-up anti-cancer treatments. It allows us to give that to children in pediatrics.”
“Children just chew the gum to soften it and then swallow and take the dose of medicine in the gum.”
Lucas Denis, pharmacy intern at Gustave Roussyat franceinfo
This medicinal gum replaces cachets, tablets, and capsules that sick children or even the elderly have difficulty swallowing. It is made in a few moments by a robot, a 3D printer that the anti-cancer center has just acquired. Its cost, between 50,000 and 100,000 euros, depending on management. “If you look, you have the pink deposits and then the white deposit that sticks together”, describes Lucas Denis. And that’s not all, the machine can also make tablets or capsules. “It’s a form of paste, a gel in which a drug is dispersedcontinues the intern. And then the printer pushes with a certain force, like toothpaste, to deposit the drug layer in the capsule. Once we have finished depositing the two layers of active ingredients, we close the capsules.. These two drugs are hormone therapy associated with a treatment that avoids its side effects, including hot flashes. “And we could put three, four, depending on the space we have in the capsule and the clinical need expressed by the patient. That’s fewer tablets, fewer capsules to take”concludes Lucas Denis.
For a patient, having one capsule instead of two changes a lot of things, assures oncologist Inès Vaz-Luis, because this hormone therapy given to women treated for breast cancer is a treatment that we all take. days for years and years. “Recommendations range from five to ten years. Many patients are reluctant to introduce yet another pill into their lives. A few patients fail to make it for the full duration.” It is then a risk of relapse.
This clinical trial, which in the coming months will allow 200 women to test one capsule instead of two thanks to this new 3D printer, aims to measure and observe whether patients are more willing to take their long-term treatment and, unlike today, do not abandon it so much along the way.