Development of vacuum compression molded tablets with rapid drug release and a comparison of dissolution profiles between molded and FDM 3D-printed tablets

In recent years, there has been much interest in the development of personalized and on-demand tablets by FDM 3D-printing of melt-extruded filaments. Alternatively, the filaments can also be converted into molded tablets. However, drug release rates from tablets produced by both methods are very slow and not amenable to immediate-release drug products. We previously reported a novel approach called acid-base supersolubilization (ABS), whereby dissolution rates of poorly water-soluble basic drugs from FDM 3D-printed tablets could be greatly increased by interaction with added weak acids. Here, we investigated whether such acid-base interaction applying the ABS principle could similarly increase drug dissolution rates from molded tablets. Haloperidol, a basic drug with low and pH-dependent solubility, was used as the model drug, and molded tablets were prepared by the vacuum compression molding (VCM), where filaments containing 1:1 and 1:2 molar ratios of haloperidol and malic acid along with Kollidon VA64 were prepared at 15 % w/w drug loading. Broken filaments were compressed into VCM tablets under a vacuum at high temperatures. The tablets thus produced gave very high pH-independent dissolution rates, with > 90 % haloperidol dissolving in 60 min. Dissolution rates were similar from both molded and FDM 3D-printed tablets, and thus, the two methods can be used interchangeably depending on the drug development needs.