Johnson & Johnson Announces New Collaborations to Develop Biomedical Innovation and Advance 3D Printing Technology in Healthcare

Using 3D printing technology to manufacture custom health solutions is not a new idea, and there are many companies that work hard to solve medical problems with ideas that involve 3D printing. The technology has the potential to create customized solutions that offer patients more satisfaction and better outcomes. Johnson & Johnson, one of the largest medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers in the world, has been advancing 3D printing efforts in the healthcare industry for years, teaming up with Organovo in 2014 to evaluate 3D bioprinted tissue use and last year working with HP to create personalized 3D printed healthcare solutions.

This week, Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC announced several new collaborations in its portfolio that will work to develop biomedical innovation and potential treatments for diseases that urgently need solutions, like rheumatoid arthritis and obesity, and all of its related complications, like non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and type 2 diabetes. These partnerships will also seek to advance cutting-edge technologies, such as 3D printing, to create customized health solutions around the world.

Paul Stoffels, MD, Chief Scientific Officer, Johnson & Johnson, said, “Fulfilling the unmet needs facing patients today requires continued investment in the ideas that could become the healthcare solutions that improve and extend patients’ lives in the future. Today’s collaborations illustrate Johnson & Johnson Innovation’s continued commitment to identifying and advancing the most innovative ideas – wherever they originate – that could transform patients’ lives, particularly those in most need in developing parts of the world.”

These collaborations include strategic transactions and investments to advance cutting-edge biomedical research that has the chance to improve patients’ lives and really change the landscape of healthcare through 3D printing innovations.

The company’s affiliate, Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc., executed a research collaboration recently with Inkbit Corporation, a 3D printing startup that spun directly out of MIT. The startup has developed a unique multi-material 3D printing technology that can be used for printing complex consumer products with integrated electronics. Through this work, Inkbit’s manufacturing platform will advance toward optimization and validation. The personalized aspects of healthcare made possible through 3D printing technologies are of great interest to Johnson & Johnson, as the company notes it is “working to change the landscape of healthcare through 3-D printing innovations.” Through this focused collaboration with Inkbit, the company furthers its mission to bring 3D printing more deeply into healthcare, offering patients and professionals access to customizable care options.

Other collaborations that Johnson & Johnson, and its subsidiaries, announced include:

• SLIPS Technologies, which developed a unique surface coating technology, has teamed up with Johnson & Johnson Consumer, Inc. to improve manufacturing process efficiency and save costs.
• The University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada has formed two separate, multi-year collaborations with Johnson & Johnson Vision Care to develop contact lenses with unparalleled visual performance and new health benefits.
• Janssen Biotech, the pharmaceutical company of Johnson & Johnson, formed a multi-year collaboration and pre-negotiated an option-to-license agreement with Monash University, to discover and develop biologic next-generation therapeutics to treat, prevent, and intercept rheumatoid arthritis.
• Janssen also formed a multi-year collaboration with the University of California San Diego School of Medicine to identify pathways and mechanisms that drive the progression of diseases related to obesity, and determine therapeutic targets, clinically useful biomarkers, and gastric bypass approaches that could bring about improved treatments for these diseases.

“Our unique approach to creative deal making has helped us build of one of the most robust innovation portfolios in the industry, and through these collaborations we are advancing transformative products that could improve or extend patients’ lives. The innovative ideas of our collaborators paired with the unmatched resources we can offer through Johnson & Johnson Innovation have advanced multiple programs to key inflection points resulting in acquisition or in-licensing of several technologies,” said Robert G. Urban, PhD, Global Head, Johnson & Johnson Innovation.

These partnerships are just a few of the 20-plus new strategic relationships Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries established this year to continue innovating healthcare, including the recent acquisition of 3D printing technology from Tissue Regeneration Systems by DePuy Synthes to create patient-specific, bioresorbable implants to support bone healing in orthopaedic and craniomaxillofacial patients. Discuss in the Johnson & Johnson forum at 3DPB.com.