3DPI readers are no stranger to 3D printed orthopedics or the adoption of 3D printing in the medical field and, over the course of 2016, we expect to see this adoption only increase. A big sign that 3D printing is becoming mainstream medical practice is news that Fortune 500 medical tech companyStryker Corporationwill be building a 3D printing facility this year.
According toMedical Device and Diagnostic Industry, this news was discussedin an earnings call由医疗公司周二。在电话中，Stryker首席执行官Kevin Lobo和退休的CFO William Jellison谈到了该设施的目的，称3D打印将用于创建新产品，以使Stryker在市场上具有竞争优势。用3D打印改进的产品的示例包括无水泥膝盖植入物，3D打印的the骨和胫骨底板植入物，该植入物使用只能用3D打印而生产的几何形状。他们还计划为脊柱推出3D打印的钛室内装置。与许多3D印刷植入物一样，杰利森说，脊柱和无水泥的膝盖是多孔的，可以鼓励骨骼生长。
然而，杰利森说，目标不是要取代其产品，而是扩大其现有投资组合，“For the foreseeable future, at least the next three, four years or so,”he explains,“our focus is really on innovative new products and not replacing our existing products with 3D printed products. The pipeline of innovative new geometries that can’t be made without 3D printing is the area of focus.So it’s not about trying to replace our products and drive down cost. Over time ten years from now that could be the case, but in the near to midterm, it’s really focused on innovative new products.”
Lobo spoke to the difficulties of metal 3D printing, used to create these products by saying,“…3D printing metal is very different than sort of the way you think about 3D printing plastic having it on a desk in an office and cranking out 3D printed products. So metal is much more complicated.”He adds that the medical corporation has spent a great deal of time developing their metal 3D printing capabilities, saying,“We’ve been working on this for many, many years and so we have a lot of know-how on how to program the machines and optimize the machines and so there is a lot of factors that go into it to be able to create and different types of machines work that are for smaller products than larger products.”
Given the complexity of the technology, particularly in the context of a critical field like medicine, the company doesn’t envision metal 3D printing replacing its entire product process for a long time. Instead, increasing the number of 3D printed products, as well as additional focus on robotics, that Stryker offers will allow the company to offer a new product to its clients. Lobo says,“随着时间的推移,我希望机器人和3 d印刷take on a more important portion of our overall sales and there will be sustainable and sticky if we have something that the competition doesn’t have.”
What this represents to me is that, after smaller, cutting edge firms, like Materialise, have successfully demonstrated the potential of 3D printing in medicine, larger medical firms are jumping in. Similar to how HP intends to disrupt the industrial 3D printing industry with MultiJet Fusion, it wouldn’t be surprising to see medical giants attempt to swallow up medical 3D printing. When a mainstream prosthetics manufacturer begins producing low-cost, 3D printed prosthetics, competing with a non-profit like e-NABLE, this scene will be much clearer.
