Read time: 14 mins.
Key highlights:
- Lining up: Insights from those looking to enable AM's next killer application.
- What's the matter: How materials development holds the key to greater efficiency.
- A crucial period: Direct printed aligners might only be 12 months away.
This article was first published via the Additive Insight newsletter on January 30th, 2025.
It’s been 25 years now. The production line has barely stopped.
Once patients have been scanned, and the multi-month treatment planned, the 3D printers kick in. They spit out patient-specific thermoforming moulds that will be used to create the various iterations of clear aligner that go in the patient’s mouth, before automated trimming and laser marking steps complete the workflow.
According to Align Technology, it is the ‘world’s largest 3D printing operation.’ In April 2021, it was producing 700,000 unique aligners per day. Three and a half years on, the company claims that number is now above a million. Depending on how often its factories are open, it means Align is manufacturing 5-7 million parts per week, up to 30 million a month, potentially 365 million a year. Each of them - every single one - with their own 3D printed mould.
It is a lot of parts being manufactured, a lot of products being pushed out the door, a lot of patients being served (Align says more than 18 million as of 2024). And the fruits of such labour are there for all to see. Align Technology is one of the biggest brands in healthcare and boasts a market capitalisation of more than 16 billion USD.
But it’s not resting on its laurels. And nor is anyone in the business of dental aligners. By now, the manufacture of these teeth straightening devices is fairly similar across the board. 3D printed moulds are standard practice, as are the automated workflows and, it turns out, as are the ambitions to use 3D printing to manufacture the end use part.
When it moved to acquire Cubicure for 79 million EUR in September 2023, Align CEO Joe Hogan remarked: “Align is continuing to innovate and invest in technologies that enable the next generation of direct 3D printed products.”
3D Systems is active in this area too. Last summer, as part of an expanded technology roadmap for the dental industry, the company announced it is aiming to commercialise a direct 3D printing solution for clear aligners by the end of 2025 or start of 2026. And at least two other organisations spoken to for this feature are working towards the same ends.
So, that’s where we’re heading, but how are we getting there?
The advent of aligners
“Additive manufacturing,” Srini Kaza, Align Technology’s Executive Vice President of Product Research & Development, told TCT, “is at the heart of the Invisalign manufacturing process.
