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Advanced Material Development unit starts work on coronavirus-related drug delivery system

Published: 09:13 04 May 2020 EDT

Advanced Material Development -

Advanced Material Development subsidiary Com3d is embarking on a new treatment system that aims to deliver drugs directly into the lungs of Covid-19 patients.

Com3d’s labs at the University of Texas at Austin, which like many in the pharma and biotech industry have remained open during the lockdown, aims to rapidly develop a drug delivery system that would use 3D-printing technology to speed the manufacturing process

Compared with existing methods of producing nanoparticles for drugs, such as emulsion evaporation, Com3d said advanced 3D printing technology can produce specific sized designed particles needed for drug delivery “in a faster more efficient process, suitable for treatment and vaccination against future seasonal and novel respiratory viruses”.

READ: Advanced Material Development re-writing the rule-book on commercialising academic research

The first-of-a-kind 3D-printed, particulate drug delivery system would deliver current and future therapeutic agents and novel vaccines directly into lungs of COVID-19 patients, using a patient-specific approach, Com3d said. 

“It offers significant advantages over traditional manufacturing processes including better efficiency and manufacture of personalized unit dosages.” 

Delivering a vaccine by aerosol would also match the route of vaccination to the route of infection.

“The unprecedented nature of the recent COVID-19 outbreak has highlighted the need to develop new systems for more direct treatment of pulmonary diseases,” CoM3D added.

Com3d, which recently appointed Dr Anthony Thomson as chief executive, is a life sciences-focused collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin, one of three universities with which AMD works to fund and commercialise university-based nanomaterials research.

The drug delivery treatment research is being led by pharmacy assistant professor Mo Maniruzzaman, who previously worked with AMD through its partnership with the University of Sussex.

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