Low‑Cost 3D‑Printed Inhalers Offer Affordable Access for Millions

The team at Coalesce Product Development generates dozens of prototypes for each medical device, ensuring every design iteration meets rigorous standards.

According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 262 million people worldwide suffer from asthma, a condition that causes almost 500,000 deaths each year. For patients with asthma or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), inhaled medication is essential to manage symptoms and maintain an active lifestyle. Yet, access and affordability remain significant barriers, especially for the uninsured and those in low‑income countries. Studies published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society and the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology estimate annual costs per person for asthma treatment between $1,800 and $4,900, covering medication, doctor visits, and indirect expenses such as lost work time. A 2005 Health Costs Survey found that 44% of people with asthma discontinued medication or doctor visits to save money.

UK‑based Coalesce Product Development tackles these challenges by designing innovative drug‑delivery devices—including inhalers and injectors—that deliver generic inhalation products at a fraction of the cost of brand‑name alternatives, which can exceed $380 per month.

Inhalers must be usable by a broad demographic, from adolescents to elderly patients with comorbidities. Precise sizing, ergonomics, and user interface design are therefore critical. To achieve this, the Coalesce team uses in‑house 3D printers to prototype, test, and fabricate devices in a variety of shapes and sizes. They also create custom 3D‑printed test rigs, jigs, and fixtures to validate each product’s performance.

Industrial Designer

Vinnay Chhabildas, Industrial Designer at Coalesce, explains how 3D printing allows the team to produce “look‑like” prototypes, reduce outsourcing, and accelerate design iteration, ultimately resulting in innovative drug‑delivery devices.

Investing in Formlabs for Medical Device Manufacturing

Draft Resin is employed to test fixtures before machining.

Coalesce first purchased the Form 2 stereolithography (SLA) printer in 2015. At the time, prototype development heavily relied on external vendors, causing delays of days for each part. With the Form 2, the team rapidly reduced outsourcing, building multiple Form 2 units and slashing lead times.

The Form 2 facilitated the design of key architectural components for several inhaler and auto‑injector devices. For instance, the casework of the electronic Breath Profiling Device (BPD) used White Resin for its smooth finish, mechanical strength, and compatibility with brass inserts.

Vinnay notes that “SLA offers an excellent balance of resolution, surface finish, durability, material options, and dimensional accuracy. Because our devices include moving parts, in‑house prototyping of small mechanisms was essential.” He added that the Form 2’s release was a turning point: “We ordered the first unit immediately and followed up with a second within weeks.”

Initial prototypes focused on the BPD’s exterior geometry. Once the design stabilized, printed parts were painted and showcased at the annual Drug Delivery to the Lungs (DDL) conference, where they were often mistaken for finished products.

Subsequent clinical studies using the same prototypes revealed significant variation in uninstructed inhalation profiles, underscoring the importance of precise device design.

In‑house printing proved dramatically cheaper than third‑party vendors—approximately 20 × less expensive. For the BPD casework, the Form 2 cost £11 per part versus about £250 when outsourced. Beyond cost, the time advantage was decisive: parts printed in eight hours could be finished and painted within days, whereas external contractors required a week or two.

Inhaler Casework	In‑House 3D Printing	Outsourced 3D Printing
Cost	£11	£250
Lead Time	1–2 days	1–2 weeks

White Resin also allows precise screw‑thread insertion, facilitating functional testing.

Expanding In‑House 3D Printing with the Form 3

Rapid prototyping remains central to Coalesce’s success. After establishing a robust Form 2 fleet, the company added three Form 3 printers to move beyond surface‑level prototypes to fully functional parts featuring minute internal features.

The Form 3’s Low‑Force Stereolithography (LFS) technology provides unmatched accuracy, enabling the team to analyze fine particle distribution in dry‑powder formulations and ensure precise drug delivery.

Vinnay summarizes: “The Form 3 lets us print fine features and delicate meshes, and we can iterate on the fly, producing a physical part in a few hours. Eliminating third‑party suppliers has accelerated our development cycle.” He adds that the printers are now running nonstop, five days a week, and are integral to tooling, patient‑trial mouthpieces, and internal device testing.

Why Formlabs? “No other platform matches the print quality, reliability, and ease of use we’ve come to rely on with Formlabs,” Vinnay says. “Since the Form 2, we haven’t switched.”

A Vast Library of SLA 3D Printing Materials

Coalesce leverages a broad spectrum of Formlabs resins to meet diverse manufacturing needs.

Draft Resin speeds up fixture creation—print times of roughly one hour enable rapid iteration and testing before CNC machining.

High‑Temp Resin produces tooling that withstands heat‑sealing processes; many inhaler components cannot be machined, making 3D‑printed custom tools indispensable.

Rigid Resin is ideal for small, intricate features that must maintain dimensional fidelity under airflow forces.

Grey Pro Resin, with superior wear resistance, is used for gears and other high‑friction components.

Standard Resins—White and Black—serve aesthetic purposes. White Resin’s paint‑ready finish is used for exterior casework and polished presentation models before production approval.

BioMed Clear Resin enables the production of mouthpieces for human‑factor testing. Printing these components in a biocompatible, skin‑safe resin eliminates the cost of injection moulding.

Elastic 50A Resin, used in the chemical lab, creates silicone‑like adapters that reliably seal against patient mouthpieces during lung‑simulation testing.

Clear Resin serves as a potting material; its translucency allows engineers to inspect internal assemblies and verify component integration.

3D Printing’s Impact on Medical Device Development

The breath‑actuated inhaler (BAI) builds on the press‑and‑breathe concept but offers a simpler open‑inhale‑close interface. The pre‑metered dry‑powder inhaler (DPI) platform supports multiple formulations with a clear dose counter.

Deploying in‑house 3D printing delivers substantial value: it reduces outsourcing, accelerates design iteration, and produces essential tooling—eliminating the need for injection moulding.

Using Formlabs printers, Coalesce shortened lead times for device casework by 80–90% and cut costs by 96%. These efficiencies empower the company to develop devices for clients and to create proprietary technology for out‑licensing to global pharmaceutical partners, all with modest capital investment.

In short, Vinnay sums up: “For Coalesce, Formlabs 3D printers are vital.”

Contact Formlabs to discover how desktop SLA 3D printing can streamline your prototyping and testing workflows—and receive a free sample tailored to your application.