Levent Kocabas is a Ph.D. candidate and teacher at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Division of Pharmaceutics at Utrecht University. He was trained as a pharmacist and obtained a master’s degree for pre-higher education teaching at the University of Groningen. After working as a pharmacist for a while, he started teaching at Utrecht University, where he obtained a University Teaching Qualification. Currently, he is combining his passion for education and research by doing a Ph.D. in the 3D-printing of pharmaceuticals and implementing this technology in elective courses of the master’s degree program Pharmacy. 

Presentation: No more measuring cups and bad taste: personalizing pediatric medication with 3D-printing

Acceptance of oral formulations is low in the pediatric population and (dose) personalization of pediatric medication is much needed. Therefore, alternative administration routes like the rectal route, with dosage forms such as suppositories, are common for medicines for children. Since 3D-printing of medicines is fundamentally different from conventional compounding of suppositories, this novel technique will yield products with tunable properties (such as the drug dose) and tailor-made release profiles. In this study, prednisolone suppositories for infants with tunable dose and rapid release are printed. We demonstrate that by using 3D-print technology, promising advances can be made in the compounding of medicine to meet the needs of individual patients, in particular by enabling the development of novel dosage forms and making dose adjustment easy.