Refrigerator-Sized Machine Can Print Pills on Demand (dailymail.co.uk) 113
MIT Researchers have created a new "Pharmacy on Demand" prototype that can produce 1,000 doses of medication every 24 hours. Their new system "can be easily transported in case of outbreaks, supply shortage or if a manufacturing plant shuts down," notes the Daily Mail, and the on-demand technology can address many of the challenges in supplying medications, for example regions without facilities for storing pills. "The dosages don't have to have long-term stability," says the head of MIT's Chemistry department. "People line up, you make it, and they take it." The DARPA-funded researchers produced Valium, Prozac, Benadryl, and lidocaine, and demonstrated that "Within a few hours we could change from one compound to the other." The machine can also switch to a different drug type within a few hours, making it economical to produce drugs needed by only a small number of patients.
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Because giving people jobs is so 19th century.
This would be the first vending machine to take thousand-dollar bills.
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I guess you've never heard about the vending machines that offer one ounce gold coins.
Or ten packs of 1 ounce, 1/2 ounce, 1/4 ounce, or 1/10 ounce gold coins.
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Because giving people jobs is so 19th century.
You want lots of jobs? Fine: ban the use of all power equipment in construction. Presto, millions of jobs, everything from digging ditches to lifting and carrying materials by hand.
Re: Jobs (Score:1)
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And get crappier buildings because it's hard to make a modern good building without decent tools.
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The difference between this machine and the industrial level is smaller than you think, the jobs in the pharmacy industry isn't the manufacturing, it's the research.
If anything this machine may create more qualified jobs.
Re:Just curious (Score:5, Funny)
What kind of "outbreak" would require any of those medications: Valium, Prozac, Benadryl, and Lidocaine ???
I predict Cleveland Ohio will see such an outbreak this July. We may see one on a national level in November as well.
Be careful who you stand behind in line too (Score:2)
Okay, that was really funny.
I was also thinking it is probably important to check out the guy in line in front of you and maybe switch places if it looks like psycho active or hormone replacement case.
Re: Just curious (Score:1)
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What kind of "outbreak" would require any of those medications: Valium, Prozac, Benadryl, and Lidocaine ???
Anything causing massive anxiety, depression, cardiac arrhythmias and allergies.
We have those problems all of the time. Don't you?
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Lidocaine has me curious. When is a topical analgesic useful as a pill?
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sore throat maybe?
RTFA (Score:2)
the machine makes suspensions, drugs in liquid.
in case of outbreak or loss of supply chain, where will they get their raw materials? this is not ready for prime time by any stretch.
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What kind of "outbreak" would require any of those medications: Valium, Prozac, Benadryl, and Lidocaine ???
Probably the election of Donald Trump as president.
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What kind of "outbreak" would require any of those medications: Valium, Prozac, Benadryl, and Lidocaine ???
It's people like you that convinced the venture capitalists not to fund the Wrights' research because the Flyer didn't have a cargo compartment for passengers' luggage.
This is a first design, producing known drugs for which there is a reliable synthesis mechanism that can be employed in a "raw materials in here, drug out here" continuous-flow process. Now that they have a basic design that works, they can expand it to incorporate other synthesis processes.
The future of dosage? (Score:5, Informative)
It would be interesting to see if it can do some of the new tamper-resistant coatings as well.
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So.. you're excited because the drug manufacturing industry is here to solve a problem that they, themselves caused?
Re:The future of dosage? (Score:4, Insightful)
For that matter, the machine would not be producing the drugs, it would just be packaging them. The drugs go in to the machine in some sort of loose form and the machine prints them into pills. Manufacturing is serious chemistry that would be hard to do in a fully automated manner in the field.
Re:The future of dosage? (Score:4, Insightful)
The funny part is, this machine is nothing special. they have had powdered candy into pill pressing vending machines for 10 YEARS.
My daughter used to use them on vacation all the time, the kids put in the $2.00 push the buttons to drop in the different color powders and then they press go and it presses the bin of powder into hard candies for them. It is a willy wonka brand.
So the pharma companies are 10 years behind the candy companies It's very easy to convert the candy machine to a medicine machine. same size pill for everyone, you just adjust the medicine to filler ratio, drop those powders to a mixing chamber and then to the presser, Exactly how they do it in a factory. you could have a rotating die if you just want to adjust pill size, but adding filler is far easier.
Problem is, their machine either needs to have separate hermetically sealed sections for each medicine, or you will have cross contamination. and who is going to wear the hazmat suit to clean the thing? it will have medical compound dust all over the inside.
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I think it would be interesting more for mixing custom meds for those who take several different pills a day. Maybe they could just take one or a few
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"it would be interesting more for mixing custom meds for those who take several different pills a day. Maybe they could just take one or a few of the same pills that have all the needed ingredients."
It might be difficult to do that in a reliable way. The fillers/binders and the active ingredients must be compatible in terms of grain size (for reliable, even mixing) and to result in a tablet that doesn't crumble and that dissolves quickly or slowly as desired. To make it work out for every possible combinati
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For that matter, the machine would not be producing the drugs, it would just be packaging them. The drugs go in to the machine in some sort of loose form and the machine prints them into pills. Manufacturing is serious chemistry that would be hard to do in a fully automated manner in the field.
The third sentence is correct, but the first is wrong. This new machine does actually do complex chemical synthesis; for an overview of what's impressive about it (as well as which of the researchers' claims are not feasible) see this post: http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pi... [sciencemag.org].
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This new machine does actually do complex chemical synthesis
Indeed, that's what the linked article says...
Me too, I just blindly assumed that it was just packaging pre-manufactured drugs (who does RTFA these days).
So, after RTFA'ing, and given the very intriguing claims, I CTFD'd, and indeed... :-)
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For that matter, the machine would not be producing the drugs, it would just be packaging them. The drugs go in to the machine in some sort of loose form and the machine prints them into pills. Manufacturing is serious chemistry that would be hard to do in a fully automated manner in the field.
No and yes: this is a proof of concept chemical synthesizer, it is making the drugs and then adding more ingredients to make the tablets. It can only make a few different drugs because that is probably all that can be made somewhat efficiently with this configuration. On the other hand you're right: it would be ludicrous to actually use this to make drugs for consumption. When it comes to making something simple like benadryl most of the complications aren't in making it safely, the complications are in leg
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For that matter, the machine would not be producing the drugs, it would just be packaging them
That was my reaction (no pun intended!) too at first, but no, this is actually chemical synthesis from starting materials. It is not quite as modular as they imply from the summary. You need to clean and restandardize the system to change product. But the idea is that it is capable of following a programmed synthesis and purification strategy. The purification is actually the coolest part to me. The synthesis uses an optimized flow chemistry design (think no solvents, short reaction times, high temperatures
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The pharmaceutical industry did not create the dosage problem. They are responsible for plenty of problems, but the variety of sizes of humans is not one of them.
Maybe so, but they didn't solve the problem either, MIT did.
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For that matter, the machine would not be producing the drugs, it would just be packaging them. The drugs go in to the machine in some sort of loose form and the machine prints them into pills. Manufacturing is serious chemistry that would be hard to do in a fully automated manner in the field.
AFAICT, the machine would actually *produce* the drugs.
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As someone who has to give his cat 3/4 of a pill twice a day, this would be a very welcome change.
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It's really the cost of the pharmacy that's inhibiting this, not the drug manufacturing. Compounding pharmacies were essentially the genesis of the profession, but it takes expert skills and knowledge, and is not a high throughout process. So it doesn't fit in with the fast food delivery system for drug dispensing that we use now. There are still some compounding pharmacies around for special niche cases, but outfits like cvs stick with very standardized methods and procedures so that they can hire a skelet
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More drugs than people realize should be dosed in proportion to the patient's weight.
Psychiatrist here: You're mostly correct, but in the case of anti-depressants, your weight just adjusts upwards to match the dose of the pill given. Until the pill stops working (people get depressed about the weight increase), and so a larger dose is given.
The important thing is to not stop taking them at any time, and, if necessary, move from a generic to patented formula. If any of this causes anxiety, tachycardia or an allergic type cough, Lidocaine, Valium and Benadryl can be added.
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Huh? Don't you realise that what you describe is PRECISELY dosing by weight. The physician looks at the patient's weight, estimates (from tables, whatever) the mg/kg dosage for the particular body weight, then issues the
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The physician looks at the patient's weight, estimates (from tables, whatever) the mg/kg dosage for the particular body weight, then issues the appropriate prescription for so many pills per day for the patient.
The problem I'm after though is that the physician is still limited to the pills that are in existence. If you have a prescription that is sold in 50mg and 100mg tablets, but the patient is best served by a 75mg tablet that doesn't exist, what is the physician to do? Yeah, you can tell the patient to cut 1/3 of their pills in half so they can take 1.5 pills each day, but that is actually quite a bit to ask of the patient and it won't have consistent results in most cases.
If the doctor wanted me to maintain tighter limits, then he'd have issued 2x5mg pills per day - for morning and evening.
That is another matter that work
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Quick hint : if getting your medicine protocol right is a matter of life and death, then most people do pay adequate attention to it. Or they end up in hospital (free in our country), or a morgue.
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if getting your medicine protocol right is a matter of life and death, then most people do pay adequate attention to it.
Sure, but there are a lot of medications that end up being multiple-doses-per-day ordeals that won't lead to a quick death if they get it wrong. What if the drug is for Alzheimer's? Or Parkinson's? What if it's a diabetes medication or something for a heart condition? Yeah, they can end up dead if they screw it up repeatedly but the change could be so gradual that the patient won't notice it nearly in time.
To make it worse, Americans pay some of the highest prices for medications anywhere. This le
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All of these are matters of which I have personal experience. Oh, sorry, not the Parkinsons. That doesn't stop you from getting it right.
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To make it worse, Americans pay some of the highest prices for medications anywhere. This leads a lot of people to experiment with their own modified dosage to save money. [SNIP] Unfortunately I live in the US, where the most common cause of bankruptcy is currently medical bills
My sympathies. If you have the option, leave, and take as many of your families and tax payments with you
Thank you. Unfortunately leaving the US permanently is not as easy as some people suggest. I know this from having looked in to it in the past. Back in 2004 when the second President Bush managed to steal his second election, I started looking to see what it would take to move to Canada. Even with both my wife and I having at least four-year degrees (I have an advanced degree beyond my BSci) moving still required a job offer for at least one of us - we couldn't move first and then start looking for work
Hey wait a minute.... (Score:3)
Just how far are we from Niven's autodocs now? We could medicate the psychopaths among us, so instead of becoming CEOs that steal and plunder ever more, we could neutralize their harmful tendencies humanely, and finally usher in the post-industrial leisure society?
Re:Hey wait a minute.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Just how far are we from Niven's autodocs now?
A very, very long way. Autodocs were more about fully automated surgery and organ replacement rather than dispensing drugs. I particularly remember a case where one of the Wus is exposed to vacuum and the autodoc aboard ship replaces both lungs without any human intervention; one would have to assume that people are flying around with all manner of organs stored aboard just in case. Before we have anything like that I think we'll see something more like an automated pharmacy that takes blood samples, analyses them and manufactures/dispenses exactly what the patient needs... even medication for paranoid schizophrenics.
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"A very, very long way."
OK, but there's a way? Just kidding. I know it's just a figment of a terrible sci-fi writer's imagination.
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That was the most common use for NIven's autodocs besides giving a manicure. The portable docs carried by the first Ringworld expedition were not any more capable and had limited consumables. They could diagnose various conditions through blood tests, administer medicati
If you have the chemical compounds... (Score:2)
...this is better than using manual pill molds plus drying/baking...how?
Re:If you have the chemical compounds... (Score:4, Informative)
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It's like sending a 3D printer on a camping trip instead of a box of plastic cutlery.
You say this like it's a problem.
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Option 1. Rent a trailer for the cow. Drive to the national park. Hike up the mountain with the cow. Butcher it and remove two steaks, leaving a whole dead cow bleeding all over the place. Move to a different campsite that isn't full of bears and flies eating the rest of your cow.
Option 2. Drive to national park. Hike. eat.
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Cows carry themselves.
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A horse, because I'd look ridiculous riding a cow.
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Body already has drug factories ... (Score:2)
Imagine when the form factor shrinks so much that the machine can be implanted directly into the body.
We sort of already have such machines in a very specialized sense. The pancreas creating insulin, pituitary gland producing endorphins, the adrenal gland creating adrenaline, etc. So it shouldn't take that much imagination.
Atomic 3D Printers (Score:2)
So how much longer until we have actual Atomic 3D Printers?
Comment removed (Score:3)
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We don't need anything to make Daraprim. We just have to get the FDA out of the 19th century and understand that the REST OF THE WORLD can manufacture perfectly fine chemicals. Even places like Columbia and Afghanistan. It's not hard.
Re:Good bye Martin Shkreli (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not they are out of date, its that the FDA is owned and paid for by big US pharma companies.
The FDA STILL says that getting drugs from canada for a discount is DANGEROUS!
Canadian drugs are the EXACT SAME drugs in the USA and made on the same line, their government just doesn't allow the companies to violently rape their citizens on price.
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In other words, too much freedom is bad for you, citizen. The omniscient and benevolent government officials will protect you. Even if you already have a terminal disease, that will kill you in 6 months, you can not be allowed to take a drug, until we've evaluated its safety for 5 years.
You, sir, can be a homicidal maniac and must not be allowed on the street until a diligent government official has determine
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Even if you already have a terminal disease, that will kill you in 6 months, you can not be allowed to take a drug, until we've evaluated its safety for 5 years.
Well, you could have a look at how long it takes the FDA to turn around applications on one of the accelerated approval tracks or how they relax safety standards for cancer, or how most cancer drugs fail in phase III because it turns out they are ineffective. But hey, let's just look at what happens with "too much freedom". Mostly: is the goal to create and distribute effective drugs or is the goal to sell whatever you want? Here are the two basic problems.
1. OK: you have cancer. Would you rather enroll
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1. OK: you have cancer. Would you rather enroll in a clinical trial with less than 50% chance of receiving the drug, or just ask for the drug? If most people just choose to take the drug, does the clinical trial ever enroll enough patients to determine its endpoints? Hint: getting enough patients to enroll is already a huge problem in some areas of drug research. Also, if you think that random doctors writing case reports about their uncontrolled, open label uses of an investigational drug y
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Now, you are offering me a choice. FDA does not. And I don't need to "look into it" — I have a very close friend waiting for FDA's approval of "experimental" treatment for him. He's been waiting for over 18 months now.
Doctors would not have that freedom my way either. But people would.
Neither your way nor mine is bullet-proof — i
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Any and all false advertisement must be prosecuted. But only after they are made — not per-emptively.
The same way it is prevented now in most other markets except, for some reason, healthcare.
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Any and all false advertisement must be prosecuted. But only after they are made — not per-emptively.
Again - how would anyone prove it?
The same way it is prevented now in most other markets except, for some reason, healthcare.
Because in healthcare there's really no way to prove it without running trials. Are you expecting class action lawyers to run them on contingency?
How does the FDA know today? Oh, they don't! So they ask for evidence and trials and whatnot, right? Well, some consumers may choose to wait for such trials to conclude and for such evidence to emerge. But no one would be legally obligated to.
Oh. Trials. Run by whom? Companies won't - why bother if they can sell the drugs without them? A well run trial just means a risk of having the drug proven unsellable. Consumer Reports? OK. Do you have ~$100B per year to spare to fund that operation, or will they do it based on magazine subscriptions?
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If no one can prove it, then it is not fraud, is it? Presumption of innocence, right? Right?!
Presumably, the consumers want to see these trials and would not buy the medicines (in sufficient quantities) without them — so, yes, companies would do it. But if that assumption is not valid, then FDA's continuing existence is tyranny — it protects us from things, we do not w
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Presumption of innocence, right?
That concept is applied (in theory), by the legal system, when prosecuting alleged criminals. It is not used by ordinary people deciding whether to chance taking some poison just because they have a tummy ache.
Your use of the phrase in this discussion informs me that you are a naive idiot or a shill. Either way, please trial every medicine that comes your way.
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My opponent spoke of fraud, which is a crime — in the very legal sense of the word.
People deciding, whether or not to take a particular medicine would have a large number of options — being legally barred by the government from exercising some of those options is a sign of tyranny, not a free country.
Darling, behave yourself and don't use name-calli
A Challenge to Store Pills?? (Score:2)
the challenges in supplying medications, for example regions without facilities for storing pills
How hard is it to store pills, FFS? So they will need a facility to store this machine instead then. Sales talk at its finest.
Not all that useful. (Score:2)
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Then put another machine on the other side of town.
That's kind of like saying that a gas powered generator is useless because it can only power one house.
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The reason that the majority of prescriptions in the US aren't filled is because of $$$.
Nowadays, you don't need a prescription for the blood glucose machine - the test strip manufacturers supply them to the pharmacies for free, because the test strips are where the real money is. So, 2 different insulins (regular for each meal, and nph for overnight), insulin pen tips (anyone still using syringes???), test strips, finger prickers. And the machine can't fill any of those prescriptions, same as in your Ty
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3D printers aren't especially high-yield either...
Not April Fools joke? (Score:2)
Why not refrigerator-sized, um, refrigerator? (Score:2)
OK, this is a medium-sized pill processor that can be made up to dispense, out of some level of raw materials, pills. Some of the raw materials (whether they are fully-synthesized, nearly-so, or in base stock) will need to be kept cold in places where this sort of thing makes sense.
So instead of shipping one of these do-dads that can do one thing at a time (and takes HOURS to switch over to a new product), why not ship a refrigerator filled with boxes of fully-finished pills? Surely the reliability is high
Pick and place drugs (Score:2)
Order! (Score:2)
If it can print Vicodins, I'll take 2.
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Hello House!
MDMA too? (Score:2)
Make this machine produce MDMA pills and I can guarantee its success.
MDMA is also known as ecstasy, or molly.
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Heroin, PCP, THC etc... It would become very popular.
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PCP is not that popular anymore. It seems that ketamine takes all the love.
But seriously, for an emergency supply of drugs, opiates (like heroin, aka. diamorphine) and anesthetics (like ketamine) definitely have their place. And while these specific substances are usually not the first choice for human intervention, they are still used in a medical setting.
As for THC, well, it literally grows on trees. You don't really need a machine for this.
What's the point? (Score:2)