Personalized compounded medications for companion animals

Area of Science:

• Veterinary Medicine
• Pharmaceutical Sciences
• 3D Printing Technology

Background:

• Growing demand for personalized veterinary therapies necessitates tailored dosage forms for companion animals.
• Limited availability of weight-adjusted, palatable, and flexible formulations leads to off-label drug use and manual compounding risks.
• Current practices pose challenges in achieving precise dosing and avoiding excipient toxicity in veterinary medicine.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an on-demand veterinary compounding platform using semi-solid extrusion (SSE) 3D printing.
• To utilize peanut butter as a species-preferred, drug-compatible excipient for creating palatable veterinary formulations.
• To produce tunable-dose, chewable medication units for companion animals.

Main Methods:

• Employed semi-solid extrusion (SSE) 3D printing for on-demand veterinary compounding.
• Formulated a starch-enhanced matrix using peanut butter as the primary excipient.
• Incorporated prednisolone (PRE) into the matrix to create chewable units with adjustable dosages.

Main Results:

• Successfully printed chewable units with robust extrusion characteristics and excellent dose linearity (R² > 0.99).
• Achieved immediate drug release and suitable mechanical properties for voluntary oral intake.
• Demonstrated stability of the printed formulations over 14 days under refrigerated conditions.

Conclusions:

• Introduced a scalable 3D printing platform for improved veterinary pharmacological care.
• Validated the use of peanut butter-based formulations for personalized medication delivery in companion animals.
• Highlighted the potential for this technology in providing precise, palatable, and flexible dosing for chronic veterinary treatments.