Nexa3D and Keystone Announce New Partnership to Advance Dentistry Through Better 3D Printing

Manufacturer of polymer production 3D printers Nexa3D, and manufacturer of biocompatible photopolymer resins Keystone Industries, announced today that they are partnering up to improve 3D printing capabilities available to dental markets all over the world. All KeyPrint 3D printing dental resins are now available on Nexa3D’s NXE 400 3D printers to provide dental customers with an advanced 3D printing solution.

Nexa3D’s NXE400 3D printer.

The collaboration features two of Keystone’s most advanced materials: KeySplint Soft, an FDA-cleared nightguard resin, and KeyModel Ultra, a new material for creating highly accurate dental and orthodontic models.

This brings the number of companies Keystone has partnered for advancing 3D printing in dentistry to at least three, including Nexa3D. The other two are Carbon and Rapid Shape. These three partnerships are likely part of a larger dental industry trend. According to SmarTech Analysis, additive manufacturing is on the cusp of mainstream acceptance for direct end part production in the dental industry by two observations: the increased adoption of 3D printers by dentists to print clear aligners, and the fact that materials are evolving to be capable of 3D printing aligners, mouth guards, and other standard dental devices as well as or better than by traditional methods of manufacturing.

The partnership between Keystone and Nexa3D is an interesting example of 3D printing in dentistry. If you take a look at the specs of the NXE 400 3D printer from Nexa3D, it combines a large, 16-liter build volume, precision print uniformity, modular design, and highly efficient process algorithms for production of more dental devices. Combining the NXE 400 with a better material selection provided by Keystone’s advanced KeyPrint resins is mutually beneficial. The NXE 400 offers customers advantages on its own: it has a unique build set up and print management software that allows users to rapidly prepare part files for 3D printing while maintaining compatibility with current digital dental software in use today. By working together in different disciplines, Nexa3D and Keystone’s partnership represents a move in the right direction for eventual direct end part production in dentistry through 3D printing.

But the partnership is not just about improving the software and hardware of 3D printing solutions for dentistry. Crucially, Keystone Industries and Nexa3D are also working together to implement and validate end-to-end workflows of their customers. This collaborative process between the two partners revolves around perpetually and incrementally improving end-to-end workflows and finding ways to reduce the energy consumption and waste of their customers. The net effect of optimizing their customers end-to-end workflows will be a reduction in the total carbon footprint of their products all over the world. The combination of Keystone’s network of approximately 800 distribution partners in over 70 countries and Nexa3D’s established partnerships with first-rate material suppliers, means more access for the dental industry to use NXE400 3D printer and KeyPrint resins for dental products.

Both the NXE400 3D printer and KeyPrint resins are available starting today. Click here to find out more information about the NXE400 3D printer and KeyPrint resins.