3D Systems has announced an expanded focus and technology roadmap for the dental industry, with a direct printing technology for clear aligners set to be commercialised by late 2025.
The expanded portfolio will also include solutions for the protection, repair, and replacement of teeth as the company aims to provide the broadest dental offering from any additive manufacturing solutions provider.
Its efforts to commercialise a direct printing technology for clear aligners comes after long-time partner Align Technology acquired Cubicure as it looks to transition to providing printed aligners, rather than printing the aligner moulds as it currently does.
As it sets out its plans to grow the digital dentistry market, 3D Systems has signed a multi-year purchase agreement with a value estimated to approach a quarter-billion dollars through 2028 in support of the indirect manufacturing process for clear aligners. Through its work with the likes of Align Technology, 3D Systems has built a strong reputation as a key supplier of 3D printing technology to the clear aligner industry, helping to produce roughly one million patient-specific clear aligners per day. 3D Systems believes this latest multi-year contract will provide a strong foundation to launch the next phase of its dental strategy.
Part of this strategy will see 3D Systems expand into new oral applications, such as night guards, with its NextDent technology offering, while the company also recently introduced a first-to-market solution for multi-material, jetted, one-piece dentures. This latter development has already garnered interest from leading dental labs, including Glidewell. 3D Systems anticipates FDA clearance of the solution in the second half of 2024 with 'rapid commercialisation' to follow.
“3D Systems captured an industry-leading position in digital dentistry many years ago, very early in its evolution,” said Dr. Jeffrey Graves, president & CEO, 3D Systems. “We believe the dental industry is now poised for a broad-based acceleration in the adoption of additive manufacturing technology that will impact all major dental applications, from tooth alignment and protection, to repair and replacement. With our decades-long leadership in the development of unique dental materials and printing technology, 3D Systems is ideally positioned to bring this full range of new, high-volume, custom applications to market over the next few years, and we are committed to do so.
“Leveraging our fully integrated materials, hardware, and software development teams, we are working with market leaders in each dental product category, to bring these new applications to market as rapidly as possible. Our belief is that this approach offers maximum benefit to dental patients as they gain access to better performing, more cost-effective solutions to meet their personal lifetime needs.
“Supporting the development and regulatory approval process for these new applications is essential, but equally important is the ability to rapidly scale processes to meet demand and to service customers as their volumes rise. Today, 3D Systems’ dental technology enables the production of over one million custom products per day and does so across multiple customer plants dispersed across several continents. The proof of our capability to reliably scale and support mass-custom production of dental products is well demonstrated in our recent multi-year contract award, the largest single contract in our company’s 40-year history, to support dental aligner manufacturing. We believe this is a strong indicator of the exciting potential dentistry holds for our company as we continue to expand our offerings and key partnerships to soon encompass all major patient applications, from night guards to dentures, and even to next-generation direct-printed clear aligners.”
