Studio Aslak Siimes designs PharmaPrinter Aurum to "empower pharmacists"
Industrial design firm Studio Aslak Siimes and Finnish startup CurifyLabs have created a pharmaceutical compounding system, designed to improve the process of creating patient-specific medicine.
The PharmaPrinter Aurum was born from the realisation that almost 30 per cent – nearly a third – of all medication requires personalisation rather than being mass-manufactured, according to studio founder Aslak Siimes.
This compounding, when you combine different ingredients to make tailored medication, is usually done by pharmacists using traditional methods such as a pestle and mortar.
Studio Aslak Siimes wanted to create a machine to automate part of this process and enable pharmacists to achieve "system-guaranteed" dosage consistency while eliminating friction in the process.
"To put it simply, the main concept behind Aurum was to reduce the possibility of human error from the compounding workflow and empower the pharmacists to bring high-quality compounded medication to their patients with ease," Siimes told Dezeen.
The Aurum design is part of a wider ecosystem of products from CurifyLabs, a health tech company that Studio Aslak Siimes has worked with for two years.
The machine comes in after a doctor's prescription arrives and a compounding pharmacist picks the accurate recipe for the prescription, known as a blueprint.
"[The] active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and excipient base are carefully weighed, mixed and put into a syringe, which is then installed to Aurum's heating jacket and inserted into the machine," Siimes said.
"We have a patented syringe plunger attachment called gripper, where you simply squeeze a lever and move the gripper against the syringe plunger manually and then release it. It attaches tightly and works as the movement to control the dispensing from the syringe."
Blisters for the medication, which are also designed by the studio, are then placed on top of the scale in a dedicated blister holder.
"The scale handles weight-based quality control," Siimes explained. "Then you start the print, and it dispenses fully accurate compounded medication in exact dosage quantity and weight."
"The print is fast, and a few moments later the ready blisters are removed, sealed and labelled with dosage-specific labelling, and then it is ready for distribution to the patients," he continued.
"I guess in short: put medication into syringe, put syringe into Aurum, press play and you have ready meds."
The machine also has interchangeable modules to let pharmacists create different dosage forms, including tablets, films, suppositories and troches within one system.
Siimes believes that his design is the "only fully working semi-automated compounding ecosystem in the world", and the product is already on the market and used by compounding pharmacies and hospitals around Europe and North America.
"The technology is already present in 30 states in the USA, and the reception has been highly positive," Siimes said.
"From the client base, we hear that we are truly making a difference, and can help them to deliver better products to patients with a system that really works and is easy to operate," he continued.
"It has been such a lovely thing to notice that all the hard work put into it really translates into positive outcomes."
Other healthcare products recently covered on Dezeen include a wearable patch that detects heat exposure and a meter for at-home hormone level readings.
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