2024-08-29 09:00:00
Creating personalized, tailor-made medications using 3D printing. This is the ambition of the start-up MB Therapeutics, founded in Montpellier (Hérault) by Stéphane Roulon, formerly of Sanofi, and Ian Soulairol, lecturer at the Faculty of Pharmacy in Montpellier and practitioner at the University Hospital (CHU) in Nîmes.
«The solution developed by MB Therapeutics was born from a common observation that children under ten years old are often offered unsuitable medications, such as capsules or tablets that present risks of “choking” and choking. As for liquid suspensions, they may contain excipients with known effects that are contraindicated for certain age groups.“, recalls Stéphane Roulon, CEO of the start-up. Sometimes with tastes that can put off younger people.
Adapt doses to morphology and weight
Created in 2023, MB Therapeutics is the result of nine years of research work, initiated by Stéphane Roulon when he headed the 3D printing laboratory of the French pharmaceutical multinational.Sanofi began studying 3D printing about ten years ago, which allows for the customization of dosages and forms, while producing industrial-grade drugs.“, explains the engineer. The key is medications with a gel-like appearance that can be chewed like candy or dispersed in a small volume of water. Their fluorescent bean appearance gave the company its name, the initials “MB” corresponding to “Magic Beans”.
The interest of these printed medicines, according to the start-up: improving compliance (i.e. respect for prescriptions) by adapting doses to the evolving morphology and weight of children and by personalizing tastes. Currently, these preparations are carried out manually by hospital pharmacists or in compounding pharmacies. Automating this process would, according to the co-founder of MB Therapeutics, allow for a definite saving of time, but also the reduction of stock shortages and wastage of medicines, thanks to the production of adapted volumes.
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Follow the 3D printing of medications by MB Therapeutics ????
Discover how MB Therapeutics’ pharmaceutical printer is revolutionizing drug manufacturing ????????#PersonalizedMedecine #Innovation #3Dprinting pic.twitter.com/FUZRKatcmR
— mb therapeutics (@mb_therapeutics) March 7, 2024
A $15 billion market
The MED-U Modular is currently being tested at the Nîmes University Hospital (Gard), and MB Therapeutics, which currently has five full-time employees, is in discussions with around ten other establishments to deploy its printer there by 2025. With this objective in mind, the French nugget hopes to close an initial fundraising round in mid-September and plans to recruit ten new employees. Before launching on the market, by 2026, solutions including the printer and inks for the manufacture of three first molecules, intended in particular for children suffering from heart conditions. Inks are currently co-developed with the Nîmes University Hospital. «Our “turnkey” solution will cost around 40,000 euros. It will allow a cost reduction of between 20 and 80% depending on the molecules, linked in particular to a significant time saving.“, assures Stéphane Roulon.
In its sights, a market that has been growing for several years and which today reaches more than three billion dollars in Europe and 15 billion worldwide, with an annual growth of 7% anticipated by 2032. But in which the startup is far from being the only one, the printers of the English FabRx having notably taken place in the pharmacy of the Gustave-Roussy Cancer Institute, in Villejuif (Val-de-Marne), but also at the Vall d’Hebron hospital in Barcelona and that of Leiden in the Netherlands.
But assures Stéphane Roulon, “We are the only ones in the world to have an industrial-grade 3D printer that meets pharmaceutical standards and to provide turnkey solutions“With, in the future, a market that could extend to the elderly, to those intolerant to certain excipients or even to cancer treatments. In other words, everywhere where there is a need for personalization.
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