3D Systems’ New Dental Manufacturing Platform Accelerates Shift to Digital
CHICAGO, Illinois, March 20, 2017 – 3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) today unveiled a next-generation additive manufacturing platform, based on the company’s Figure 4 technology and NextDent materials, that delivers better, faster and more predictable patient treatments with disruptive total cost of operations that can revolutionize the multibillion-dollar dental industry.
The company expects the new platform will be able to achieve improvements of up to 10 times in total cost of operations, along with significantly reduced fabrication times and far less material waste.
3D Systems has deep domain expertise in the dental market, including many years of leadership in the aligner category, and is well-positioned to lead the next evolution of the dental industry. This is a direct result of the company’s multi-year development efforts of the Figure 4 printer technology, combined with the acquisition of NextDent’s portfolio of 12 clinically effective materials with regulatory approvals in over 70 countries.
“Traditional milling machines only mill one crown at a time, making the process slow, ineffective and costly,” said Vyomesh Joshi (VJ), President and CEO, 3D Systems. “Today’s announcement is game changing. Our system can print 20 – 30 crowns in fewer than 15 minutes, which is the same time it takes most milling solutions to produce just one single crown.”
3D Systems will offer a modular printer platform that can enable smaller labs to cost-effectively produce thousands of crowns or other dental products per year, while providing fully automated solutions for larger labs producing more than 1 million crowns or other dental indications per year. The company plans to begin shipping in the fall of 2017.