3D screen printing offers routes to manufacturing pharmaceutical tablets and medical components. In this 2025 interview, Exentis Group AG discusses its production capabilities and intended applications.
One of the first companies that drew our attention to 3D screen printing and its potential for pharmaceutical applications was Laxxon—back in 2022. Fast forward to 2025: the ecosystem of specialists using 3D screen printing has expanded to include organizations like Fraunhofer IFAM Dresden and Axenoll Life Sciences Ltd. In additive manufacturing and industrial applications, “3D screen printing” describes a process that extends traditional two-dimensional screen printing into the third dimension. This involves depositing successive layers of material through a screen to build up a three-dimensional object.
To understand the capabilities of this technology as a whole, it’s important to identify what makes the uniqueness of each process.
Exentis presents its 3D screen printing technology as a platform for industrial production. In this interview, the company cites annual capacities of up to 200 million pharmaceutical tablets and 50 million medical parts, depending on configuration and application. These are stated capacities, not commercial output independently verified by the editorial team. Exentis also discusses tablet capacity at this scale in its 2024 half-year report. The applications discussed include tablets with adjustable release profiles, multi-ingredient formulations and ceramic medical components.
How can Exentis’ technology support mass production of pharmaceutical applications?
To enable mass production, Exentis offers a portfolio of advanced systems, including the Exentis EX431 GMP system, Exentis EX432 iflex GMP system and the Exentis EX434 iflex GMP system. The company describes a cold-printing process intended to limit thermal exposure of sensitive compounds. Each formulation’s stability still needs to be verified under its manufacturing conditions.
Exentis’ 3D screen printing technology allows pharmaceutical manufacturers to freely select and combine different active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) when producing tablets. According to Exentis, the technology can incorporate up to three different APIs in a single tablet.
“This flexibility allows for the production of poly-pills and customized dosing, which are often difficult to achieve with traditional 3D printing,” Raju Willener, responsible for the Pharma/Medical unit, explains.
Exentis also discusses processing technical ceramics, including ceramic pacemaker feedthroughs, and biodegradable polymers. In pharmaceutical applications, release profiles and dosage accuracy need to be established for each formulation.
According to Exentis, the cold-printing process and layered structure support the design of immediate, extended or sequential release profiles. These formulation options do not, by themselves, demonstrate improved therapeutic efficacy, bioavailability or patient adherence; such outcomes need to be evaluated for the relevant medicine.
“Unlike other 3D printing methods that are limited to prototyping or small-batch production, Exentis’ Industrialized Pharma Additive Manufacturing is a fully scalable, GMP-compliant cold-printing technology that enables mass production while preserving drug integrity, optimizing resource efficiency, and offering unparalleled formulation flexibility. Additionally, Exentis’ extensive patent portfolio reinforces its leadership in pharmaceutical additive manufacturing innovation,” Willener notes.
Complex applications in pharmaceutical and medical manufacturing
Multi-ingredient tablets, drug release formulations and high-precision medical components are considered complex applications to achieve with 3D screen printing.
Multi-ingredient tablets contain several APIs in a single production step, reducing the number of pills patients need to take daily. Custom drug release formulations allow immediate, delayed, or extended drug release profiles to be programmed within a single tablet. High-precision medical components include ceramic and polymer-based medical implants that require ultra-fine surface structures and exceptional dimensional accuracy.
A key reason behind this complexity lies in regulatory demands. Whether developing multi-ingredient tablets or high-precision implants, the pharmaceutical industry operates under strict quality control requirements. This makes batch-to-batch consistency, reproducibility, and compliance with global standards essential. As a result, these products must undergo extensive validation, biocompatibility testing, and long-term performance assessments.
Raju Willener describes the company’s quality-control and traceability features as follows: “Exentis’ GMP-certified manufacturing system ensures compliance with Pharmacopeia standards, making it viable for global pharmaceutical markets. The ability to print QR codes directly onto tablets further enhances patient compliance, enabling digital tracking and real-time information access. Screen printing structures combine the advantages of metallic properties such as good thermal conductivity, high strength and high oxidation resistance with the advantages of functional shaping, fine structures and high production quantities. Exentis’ Industrialized Pharma Additive Manufacturing platform offers robust protection against falsified medicines through its innovative tracking and authentication features, ensuring pharmaceutical security and patient safety,” the expert explains.
Regulatory context: equipment features and good manufacturing practices do not constitute authorisation to market a medicine. In the European Union, manufacturing and marketing authorisations address distinct requirements.
Other reasons that may explain this complexity include:
- Material compatibility: for multi-ingredient tablets for instance, different active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) may have varying physical and chemical properties (e.g., solubility, stability, melting points)
- Controlled release mechanisms and the distribution of active ingredients between layers. Exentis describes this structure as an aid to tablet authentication; absolute protection against falsification is not established here.
- As well as micro-scale accuracy in high-precision components
“Exentis’ technology provides a multi-layered defense against falsified medicines, leveraging on-tablet QR codes, precise API structuring, and digital tracking to enhance drug security, protect patients, and ensure full compliance with pharmaceutical regulations,” Willener points out.
Concluding notes
While 3D screen printing has already demonstrated strong potential in bioprinting and medical devices, its applications are gradually expanding into other industries, such as electronics and semiconductors. Exentis’ insights suggest that this technology could significantly reshape drug production and medical device manufacturing, offering new levels of precision and scalability. However, with limited concrete information on commercial implementations, we look forward to seeing real-world examples that truly showcase its capabilities.
This article was first published in the March/April edition of 3D ADEPT Mag.
Images: Exentis Group AG.
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