Aprecia Pharmaceuticals and Cycle Pharmaceuticals have signed a partnership agreement to develop and commercialize orphan drugs using three-dimensionally printed (3DP) technology. The planned products will deliver quality-of-life improvements versus existing, approved orphan drugs, and will achieve this by utilizing Aprecia’s proprietary 3DP ZipDose Technology platform. ZipDose is the only three-dimensional printing technology used in a pharmaceutical drug product approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“Many rare disease patients do not have a treatment option at all,” said Antonio Benedetti, chief executive officer, Cycle. “For those rare diseases where there is an approved pharmaceutical treatment, patients continue to be burdened by sub-optimal drug formulations. Aprecia’s ZipDose 3DP technology can formulate fast-melt pharmaceutical products, incorporating significantly higher amounts of active pharmaceutical ingredient than any other fast-melt technology on the market. As such, this advanced technology can uniquely overcome both pill burden and dysphagia-swallowing difficulties-both of which are life-long, daily issues for so many rare disease patients.”

Don Wetherhold, chief executive officer, Aprecia, said, “We are excited to work with the Cycle team, and we see important synergies in the companies’ shared mission to address unmet needs in patient care. Cycle specializes in orphan drugs-they have proven that they can deliver quality-of-life improvements to rare disease patients around the world. Aprecia is fully committed to applying its ZipDose 3DP printing technology to address real-world, daily issues faced by rare disease patients.”