Every human is unique – but med­ical treat­ments are often not. Body weight, gender and genetics are just some of the fac­tors that can influ­ence ther­a­pies. An example of the common “one size fits all” approach: drugs that are admin­is­tered as tablets are usu­ally only avail­able in fixed dosages. This does not allow for indi­vidual dosing; instead, many patients use impre­cise mea­sures like the manual split­ting of tablets in halves or quarters.

“But the treat­ment depends on every mil­ligram of active ingre­dient,” explains Peter Brun, phar­ma­cist and team leader in the Pharma Ser­vices divi­sion at Harro Höfliger. “Per­son­al­ized med­i­cine, in which, for example, the amount of active ingre­dient is pre­cisely matched to the needs of the indi­vidual patient, would in many cases increase treat­ment suc­cess and min­i­mize side effects.” The poten­tial of such med­ical pre­ci­sion for both patients and the health­care system is huge; in Ger­many alone, incor­rect med­ica­tion is said to lead to tens of thou­sands of deaths every year.

“The treat­ment depends on every mil­ligram of active ingre­dient.“ Peter Brun, phar­ma­cist and team leader in the Pharma Ser­vices divi­sion at Harro Höfliger

In addi­tion to increased safety and improved treat­ment suc­cess, per­son­al­ized med­i­cine makes it pos­sible to com­bine dif­ferent drugs in one admin­is­tra­tion form. For example, many people have to take numerous cap­sules or tablets throughout the day. In the future, it might be suf­fi­cient to take just one indi­vid­u­ally tai­lored com­bi­na­tion product once a day, which may help to improve patients‘ quality of life.

A market with a promising future

Thomas Weller, CEO at Harro Höfliger, is sure that these advan­tages will increase the impor­tance of per­son­al­ized med­i­cine in the coming years. “One of our prin­ci­ples is to think ahead. For this reason, we observe the trends in the field of per­son­al­ized med­i­cine very closely so that we are at the fore­front right from the start and are able to advance these tech­no­log­ical devel­op­ments. To this end, we also draw on a net­work of spe­cial­ized partner com­pa­nies. Our US-based partner Experic, for example, offers the pos­si­bility of man­u­fac­turing product sam­ples in small batches. This is a major advan­tage in the devel­op­ment of per­son­al­ized drugs.”

Inno­v­a­tive solutions

DS Tech­nology, a com­pany spe­cial­izing in med­ical and phar­ma­ceu­tical devices, also belongs to Harro Höfliger‘s net­work in the field of per­son­al­ized med­i­cine. Peter Brun reports about the coop­er­a­tion: “We supply the entire machine tech­nology for the pro­duc­tion of the XStraw^®. This is a device where the active ingre­dient is admin­is­tered with a straw – ideal for chil­dren or patients with swal­lowing dif­fi­cul­ties. With our machines, the XStraw^® can be filled with the exact dose of the required drug, by an indi­vidual dosing of the micro-tablets or pel­lets which are con­taining the active ingre­dient. This method can also be used to com­bine dif­ferent drugs.”

Also in the cap­sule area, per­son­al­ized med­i­cine in the form of micro-tablets is very promising. “Exact dosing of var­ious filling media into cap­sules is one of our spe­cial­ties,” says Marco Laack­mann, Director Inhala­tion Tech­nology at Harro Höfliger. “Our tech­nology enables the exact dosage of micro-tablets into hard cap­sules. This not only enables us to pre­cisely adjust the active ingre­dient in small, patient-spe­cific steps – dif­ferent dosing sta­tions also make it pos­sible to admin­ister any number of dif­ferent drugs with just one capsule.”

Printed med­i­cine

DiH­eSys (Dig­ital Health Sys­tems), with head­quar­ters in Ulm, also pur­sues the vision of a treat­ment that is pre­cisely adapted to the indi­vidual patient. How­ever, instead of dosing tech­nology, the com­pany focuses on med­ica­tion printing. “With the help of 2D printing, we pro­duce per­son­al­ized thin films, where we apply an exact amount of one or sev­eral active ingre­di­ents to a car­rier mate­rial,” explains Dr. Markus Dachtler, CEO at DiH­eSys. “For the indi­vid­u­al­ized printing of tablets – also with sev­eral layers for dif­ferent active ingre­di­ents – we use GMP-com­pliant 3D printers.”

DiH­eSys chose Harro Höfliger as a partner for the man­u­fac­ture of these phar­ma­ceu­tical printers: “Thanks to this co­operation, our cus­tomers receive printers, car­tridges and the dig­ital infra­struc­ture for an opti­mized treat­ment from a single source. Per­son­al­ized med­i­cine – based on a patient’s per­sonal data such as weight, height and lifestyle habits – could soon be pre­scribed by physi­cians, and directly printed in the pharmacy.”

Dr. Markus Dachtler, CEO at DiHeSys

“Thanks to this coop­er­a­tion, our cus­tomers receive printers, car­tridges and the dig­ital infra­struc­ture for an opti­mized treat­ment from a single source.“Dr. Markus Dachtler, CEO at DiHeSys

Indi­vidual by tradition

Thomas Weller is con­vinced that Harro Höfliger with its strong net­work, inno­v­a­tive engi­neering and cor­po­rate phi­los­ophy is well pre­pared for fur­ther devel­op­ments in the field of per­son­al­ized med­i­cine. “One of our major advan­tages is a broad range of core tech­nolo­gies, for example for dosing, assembly and web pro­cessing appli­ca­tions, which we com­bine and tailor to each indi­vidual product. Focusing on indi­vidual needs is there­fore a tra­di­tion at Harro Höfliger – and in my opinion, this pro­vides us with the best pre­req­ui­sites for con­tributing to the suc­cess story of indi­vid­u­al­ized medicine.”

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Image: DiH­eSys, Illus­tra­tion: Bernd Schifferdecker