Introduction: Currently, hot melt extrusion (HME) is a promising technology in the pharmaceutical industry, as evidenced by its application to manufacture various FDA-approved commercial products in the market. HME is extensively researched for enhancing the solubility and bioavailability of poor water-soluble drugs, taste masking, and modifying release in drug delivery systems. Additionally, its other novel opportunities or pharmaceutical applications, and capability for continuous manufacturing are being investigated. This efficient, industrially scalable, solvent-free, continuous process can be easily automated and coupled with other novel platforms for continuous manufacturing of pharmaceutical products.
Areas covered: This review focuses on updates on solubility enhancement of poorly water-soluble drugs and process analytical tools such as UV/visible spectrophotometry; near-infrared spectroscopy; Raman spectroscopy; and rheometry for continuous manufacturing, with a special emphasis on fused deposition modeling 3D printing.
Expert opinion: The strengths, weakness, opportunities, threats (SWOT) and availability of commercial products confirmed wide HME applicability in pharmaceutical research. Increased interest in continuous manufacturing processes makes HME a promising strategy for this application. However, there is a need for extensive research using process analytical tools to establish HME as a dependable continuous manufacturing process.
Keywords: 3D printing; SWOT analysis; continuous manufacturing; hot melt extrusion; process analytical tools; solubility enhancement.