MIT Sloan Startup Multiply Labs 3-D Prints Custom Multivitamins
Earlier this month MIT Sloan stafff member Amy MacMillan Bankson discussed nifty new San Francisco startup Multiply Labs (official website), which uses 3-D robotics to print personalized pills that can conveniently take the place of that cumbersome pile of vitamins.
The groundwork for Multiply Labs was laid in 2015 when Fred Parietti, PhD ’16 and Alice Melocchi, a visiting chemical engineering student, collaborated on research into 3-D manufacturing techniques.
Thanks to a $5,000 MIT Sandbox Innovation Fund Program Grant, Tiffany Kuo, MBA ’16 and Joe Wilson hopped aboard to “help commercialize and market the product” in a way that could make waves within the $30 billion American vitamin and supplement market.
Kuo explains the concept simply: “Instead of taking a multivitamin, omega-3 capsule, and then coffee later in the day, we can place everything in one capsule.”
According to Bankson, “Customers can choose their own combination of vitamins and minerals to be inserted into minuscule compartments within each pill.” Multiply Labs clients can use a custom online algorithm to determine and customize their nutritional needs, then a custom 3-D printed pill is sent via its mail subscription-based service.
The advantage to the Multiply Labs multivitamin is that its “compartments will have varying thicknesses to control the release time of the components with the supplement.”
Multiply Labs is slated for launch this spring, and is currently accepting pre-orders.
About the Author
Jonathan Pfeffer
Jonathan Pfeffer joined the Clear Admit and MetroMBA teams in 2015 after spending several years as an arts/culture writer, editor, and radio producer. In addition to his role as contributing writer at MetroMBA and contributing editor at Clear Admit, he is co-founder and lead producer of the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. He holds a BA in Film/Video, Ethnomusicology, and Media Studies from Oberlin College.
