Through advances in pharmacogenomics precise information is available on the type and dose of drugs required for optimal treatment of an individual patient. Besides, the share of patients suffering from chronic diseases and comorbidity, and patients with specific needs is increasing as the global population is ageing. Therefore, dosage forms should be tailored to specific patient needs and manufacturing techniques should enable individualized dosing. Production technologies offering dosing flexibility and tailoring of the dosage forms to the patient needs will be studied, including 3D-printing via fused deposition modeling, extrusion-spheronization and prilling.

Interest in 3D-printing of tablets from filaments produced by hot melt extrusion is increasing as 3D-printing is a low-cost technique that allows printing a wide range of doses and processing multiple drug-loaded extrudates into one tablet. Therefore, the interplay between filament characteristics and printing variables on the one hand, and dosage accuracy and drug release rate on the other hand will be studied.

Despite the large share of affected patients and the requests of the regulatory authorities for age-appropriate dosage forms, few oral solid dosage forms meet the needs of dysphagia patients. Development of pellet-based formulations administered in a semi-solid matrix specifically designed for that purpose are therefore of interest. Additionally, such administration platform offers unique dosing flexibility as combinations of pellets with different release patterns and composition could be administered in the same matrix.