The US Food and Drug Administration has given go-ahead for the sale of an anti-epilepsy pill manufactured with a three-dimensional (3D) printer. The FDA has approved Spritam medication for the treatment of epilepsy, said Aprecia Pharmaceuticals in an announcement.

ZipDose 3D printing technology of the company allows creation of a detailed, porous structure, which expedites the process of dissolving a pill while delivering up to 1,000 mg of medication in a single dose.

Aprecia's Spritam is the first treatment to have won the approval of the FDA after being developed using 3D printing technology. Three-dimensional printing technology has significantly brought down costs over the past few years. As a result, designers and experts in a range of fields have been able to create complex pieces and tools in record time.

The 3D printers have given rise to creation of several medical and prosthetic devices, many of which have already gotten green signal from the FDA for distribution.

“For the last 50 years we have manufactured tablets in factories and shipped them to hospitals and for the first time this process means we can produce tablets much closer to the patient”, said Dr. Mohamed Albed Alhnan, a lecturer in pharmaceutics at the University of Central Lancashire.

A simple tweak to the software before printing is all required to adjust the dose for individual patients. Dr. Alhnan said before the advent of 3D technology, such personalized medicines would have been very expensive to produce.