Hovione & Laxxon Medical Establish Agreement for cGMP Production of 3D Screen-Printed Pharmaceutical Applications

Hovione and Laxxon Medical recently announced a strategic collaboration to advance the use of 3D screen-printing technologies for the pharmaceutical industry. This partnership combines Laxxon’s expertise in 3D screen printing, based on its SPID-Technology, with Hovione’s product & process development, engineering, and manufacturing expertise in pharmaceutical applications. Under the terms of the agreement, Hovione will establish the Laxxon Medical 3D screen-printing technology at Hovione’s cGMP production sites first in Portugal and later in the US.

The 3D technology displays numerous advantages, including the potential to produce unique or customized dosage forms with characteristics that cannot be achieved with conventional dosage forms, the ability to create tablets of any shape and size, the option to easily adjust the number of active substances and individual components in the composition of the tablet and even to set the dosage individually for each patient for personalized medicines.

“Laxxon is thrilled to establish a long-term partnership with Hovione,” said Klaus Kuehne, COO of Laxxon Medical. “This partnership will serve as a great accelerator in establishing 3D screen printing within the pharmaceutical industry thus accelerating our ability to serve our customers.”

“Hovione has a global reputation for their pharmaceutical innovation services, expertise and market access. This agreement marks a significant milestone for Laxxon in terms of our own market strategy and development efforts,” added Helmut Kerschbaumer, Laxxon’s CEO. “We are looking forward to collaborating with Hovione to promote innovation through 3D screen printing.”

“We find the Laxxon Medical 3D printing technology to be very innovative and enabling. It not only allows for the customization and production of drug products with complex shapes and structures as well as unique API release characteristics but it also has the potential to reduce the time and cost of drug development” said Dr. Jean-Luc Herbeaux, Hovione´s CEO. “Hovione has a track record of turning emerging pharmaceutical production technologies into reliable and scalable offerings at both developmental and commercial scales. We are excited at the prospect of supporting Laxxon in industrializing its 3D printing technology and make it accessible to a greater number of pharmaceutical and medical device companies.”

 With this partnership the platform will be available from early development phases to routine commercial manufacturing.

 Hovione is an international company with over 60 years of experience in pharmaceutical development and manufacturing operations. As a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) Hovione has a fully integrated offering of services for drug substance, drug product intermediate and drug product. The company has four FDA inspected sites in the US, Portugal, Ireland, and China and development laboratories in Lisbon, Portugal, and New Jersey. Hovione provides pharmaceutical customers services for the development and compliant manufacture of innovative drugs, including highly potent compounds, and customized product solutions across the entire drug life cycle. In the inhalation area, Hovione offers a complete range of services, from API, formulation development and devices. Hovione´s culture is based on innovation, quality and delivery. Hovione was the first Chemical/ Pharmaceutical Company to become a Certified B Corp, is a member of Rx-360, EFCG and participates actively in industry quality improvement initiatives to lead new global industry standards. For more information, visit www.hovione.com.

Laxxon Medical is a pharma-technology company pioneering patented cutting-edge 3D screen-printing development and manufacturing solutions for the pharmaceutical industry. Laxxon’s SPID-Technology (Screen Printing Innovational Drug Technology) facilitates different pharmaceutical forms of application such as oral, transdermal, and implantable dosage forms through geometric shaping and heterogeneous distribution of active ingredients, enabling different release profiles such as sequential release. SPID-Technology is capable of printing small batches for R&D, up to commercial-scale production without the need to change the manufacturing process.

SPID-Technology (Screen Printed Innovative Drug Technology) is an additive manufacturing process that enables the development and production of complex formulations and geometrical structures of oral dosage forms to optimize the release profiles of common pharmaceuticals in addition to new drug developments.

Vanessa Romeu | Communications Director | vromeu@hovione.com | Tel.: +351 21 982 9000