Finnish healthtech startup CurifyLabs was founded in 2021 with the mission of transforming how we make personalized medicines. It combines specialized software, high-quality ingredients, and automated 3D printing production to deliver safe, accurate, and customized treatments. In 2023, the startup launched a GMP-compliant drug 3D printer, which allows hospitals and compounding pharmacies to make customized drug formulations with its inks. Last year, it acquired significant intellectual property (IP) from Mehta Heino Industries Oy, which is known for 3D printing hardware development. Its latest innovation was launched this month: Curablend Vet for 3D printed, personalized pet medicines.
“We know how important pets are to families. And we’re proud that Curablend Vet now brings the benefits of trusted 3D-printed medicine to veterinary care,” said Charlotta Topelius, Founder and CEO of CurifyLabs.
CuraBlend Vet is a veterinary excipient system, developed to be used with the CurifyLabs 3D printing-based Compounding System Solution (CSS). An excipient is an inactive substance that acts as the medium or vehicle for a drug or other active substance. Often, veterinarians don’t have dosage-specific medicines for their patients, so pharmacists have to get creative to treat them, either preparing ad-hoc formulations or manipulating human drug products to better suit animals. This can obviously take a lot of time and extra work, and adds unwanted variability to the formulations, which isn’t always safe.
The startup’s 3D printing CSS is used in many pharmacies and hospitals in Europe and the U.S., replacing manual steps with automation to create personalized medicines for humans, and now animals. CurifyLabs says its new system helps make veterinary drug compounding safer and more predictable through a standardized, digitally documented 3D printing workflow.
“Designed for high palatability in both dogs and cats, CuraBlend Vet supports straightforward, stress-free administration of compounded medicines,” CurifyLabs states on its website.
It can be difficult giving medicine to your pets; I should know, I currently have five! Two of my cats and one of my dogs will eat just about anything, so they’re not too difficult. But the other two are my picky eaters, with more discerning palates. If a pill doesn’t smell or taste like something they enjoy, it can get tricky to medicate them, which means they could miss their doses.
With my dog Dash, if I put medicine inside a Pill Pocket or hide it in peanut butter, it usually covers up the unappetizing taste enough that he’ll eat it without much fuss. But it’s a whole different story with my cat Millie, one that usually involves her attacking my arm while I hold her body with one hand and use the other hand to grip her cheeks and force her jaw open just enough to pop the pill in her mouth. Then, I have to forcibly hold her head up while she attempts to spit it back out. At this point, it’s a battle of wills…and claws. Eventually, she gets tired of fighting, swallows the pill, and scurries away hissing what are likely kitty swear words in my direction. The whole endeavor is unpleasant and painful.
CurifyLabs says that its new CuraBlend Vet can print palatable medicines for pets, with chewable, flavored gel tablets that look, feel, taste, and hopefully smell like treats. It sounds a little like the heartworm medicine I give my dogs, which they happily eat once a month.
Image: CurifyLabs
“Pet owners want medication time to be simple, not stressful. Curablend Vet gives pharmacists a reliable way to make pet-friendly medicines that animals actually want to eat,” Topelius said.
Using CuraBlend Vet, pharmacists can make soft, flavored gel tablets that pets actually want to eat, and they’re compatible with a range of active pharmaceutical ingredients. The system is compatible with CurifyLabs Create software, so dosages can be easily and efficiently adjusted for each animal in an easy three-step workflow.
The startup says that in a study with 38 cats and 31 dogs, most of the animals voluntarily ate the flavored, 3D printed CuraBlend Vet tablets, while the unflavored ones were generally given two unenthusiastic paws down.
You can learn more about CuraBlend Vet in this video with CurifyLabs CEO Niklas Sandler and Sari Airaksinen, Head of Pharmaceutical Development.
Featured image courtesy of CurifyLabs
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