China Builds World’s Largest 3D Printed Drug Factory in Nanjing

In the Jiangning high-tech zone of Nanjing, China, a new kind of pharmaceutical factory is emerging, except that this is not the usual conveyor belt or assembly line pharma factory. Instead, it will use digital, autonomous 3D printing systems to produce medicine tablet by tablet.

The plant belongs to Triastek, a Chinese company already known for its experimental 3D printed drugs. Once it becomes fully operational, the facility is expected to produce up to 300 million tablets per year, making it possibly the world’s largest commercial 3D printed drug operation, reported state-run China Daily Global.

Printing Medicine

Inside the facility, there are no mixers or coating machines. Instead, the space is filled with 3D printers that function more like artists’ tools, using as many as 100,000 monitoring points to “draw” layers of drug material according to digital designs.

Traditional drug manufacturing involves multiple steps, including granulation, mixing, pressing, coating, and packaging. Instead, the 3D printing approach simplifies it to about three steps: blending the raw materials, printing, and packaging.

This method opens new design possibilities. Tablets can be engineered with internal channels, variable density, or time-release zones, letting drugs dissolve faster or slower depending on the patient’s needs. Some versions may even carry “positioning systems” that deliver medicine precisely to parts of the digestive tract.

China’s First 3D Drug License

Recently, the Jiangsu Medical Products Administration awarded Triastek China’s first pharmaceutical production license for 3D printed drugs. That makes Triastek only the second company in the world to commercialize 3D printed drugs. The first was Aprecia, which in 2015 won U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for Spritam, a 3D printed epilepsy drug made using its patented ZipDose method, which is still active as a prescription medicine used to treat certain types of seizures. Considered a milestone, Spritam showed the promise of additive pharma; however, broad adoption has since moved slowly.

Experts have suggested that the slow uptake of 3D printed drugs is not due to a lack of promise, but to real hurdles. For example, a spokesman from FabRx, a leader in additive medicine, told 3DPrint.com a few years ago that major pharmaceutical companies often remain cautious, waiting to see proven results before committing to new manufacturing methods.

At the same time, regulators demand strong quality control, especially since even the tiniest dosage errors in printed drugs could risk patient safety, making consistency and validation enormous challenges. In highly regulated pharma, these hurdles often delay adoption despite the incredible benefits.

Meanwhile, Triastek’s first drug, an anticoagulant called Apixaban (T20j), has passed clinical trials in China and is now being submitted for market approval. The company is also advancing its gastric retention drug (T20G), which recently received Investigational New Drug (IND) clearance from both the U.S. FDA and Chinese regulators.

Deng Feihuang, Triastek’s vice-president of technology, said the company is already building a second line for hormone drugs, with plans to expand its production base by year’s end.

Beyond that, Triastek already has over ten other drug candidates in phase I or II trials, spanning both small and large molecules. 

The Bigger Picture

Triastek’s factory is designed to be fully digital and traceable, so each tablet’s manufacture can be tracked from raw material through finish. More importantly, because development cycles are compressed, new medicines could move from lab to production in months instead of years.

But there are still a few challenges. Regulatory approval is a major hurdle, and designing and manufacturing 3D printed drugs pushes existing rules. Also, scale and consistency are important in pharmaceuticals; tiny errors in printing could cause big problems. What’s more, quality, reproducibility, and oversight will be under intense scrutiny.

There is no doubt that investing in this kind of facility is capital-intensive, and many patients and regulators may be careful about accepting a medicine that is made in this way.

Still, for thousands of patients, this plant offers the promise of more personalized, precisely controlled medicines. For China, it’s quite a statement; it is a step toward leading in digital pharma manufacturing. But for the rest of the world, it’s more of a wake-up call, because if 3D printed tablets become possible, the supply chain of drugs could change dramatically, from bulk factories to more local, customizable production.

In a way, this is the dream, what many thought was going to happen back when the first 3D printed medicines were released nearly a decade ago. It’s about personalized drugs made faster, closer to patients, and with more precise control. After years of slow progress since Spritam’s debut in 2015, it’s not really that surprising that the next big leap in this niche is happening in China, where Triastek’s new facility could finally push that vision from idea to reality.