Formlabs Partnership Expands In-Office Dental 3D Printing and Scanning

Formlabs introduced its Dental Business Unit back in 2019, and its team of dental professionals use the company’s 3D printing solutions, resins, and software to support orthodontists, dental labs, and practices. The double unicorn has long supported the adoption of digital dentistry with its PreForm app, validated AM workflows, and biocompatible materials portfolio. Formlabs is now widening its reach in the dental industry even further with today’s announcement that it is partnering with global 3D dental scanning provider Medit to streamline chairside 3D printing in the dental industry and make it easier to adopt the technology.

“Formlabs Dental is expanding access to 3D printing, and doing so requires partnering with industry leaders like Medit to address barriers to adoption in the dental industry,” Formlabs Chief Product Officer Dávid Lakatos stated in a press release. “Together, we’ve created a complete chairside workflow that addresses these barriers to make the technology more accessible, with the ultimate goal of unlocking the benefits of dental 3D printing for both providers and patients.”

The goal of this new partnership is to combine the 3D printing and scanning technologies of Medit and Formlabs in order to remove AM adoption barriers in the dental industry, thus making 3D printing chairside in dental offices easier and more accessible.

In addition to its desktop and intraoral 3D scanners, Medit also develops platform solutions for digital dentistry, based on its patented technology, that support collaborative workflows. The company is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, with representatives in Europe and the Americas, and a global distributor network in about 50 different countries. So this partnership will definitely help Formlabs extend its reach in the digital dentistry market.

“The integration of Formlabs and Medit combines best-in-class 3D printers with the industry’s fastest intraoral scanner,” said Medit’s Chief Strategy Officer Inhaeng Cho. “This will inevitably bring about great synergy, resulting in easier access to a complete chairside solution.”

Through this powerful technology combination between the two companies, dental industry professionals should be able to 3D print restorative components much faster and more efficiently, thanks to an easier in-office workflow that requires less money and training time. This workflow can be integrated with Medit’s i500 and i700 Intraoral Scanners—first, a patient’s teeth are scanned, and then clinicians can easily convert these scans into diagnostic models and other dental components, before printing them on the desktop Form 3B+ 3D printer, which uses Formlabs’ patented Low Force Stereolithography (LFS) technology.

Beginning today, as a result of this newly announced dental partnership, users of Medit Link (IOS) can visit the Medit Link app in order to download Formlabs’ PreForm software integration app, which is what allows users to get dental CAD designs ready for fast 3D printing on Formlabs systems.

According to the SmarTech Analysis “Additive Manufacturing in Dentistry 2021” report, the dental 3D printing market was “one of the most stable and fast-growing opportunities for 3D printing technologies” before the COVID-19 pandemic, and was also reported to be in the middle of “a quick bounce-back recovery” last year; since then, the sector has only continued to grow.

“Since 2016, Formlabs has seen a 460% increase in printers sold in the dental industry, and 2022 will be a landmark year for 3D printing growth as dental practices and labs seek to have on-demand, rapid, manufacturing for these completely digital workflows,” Sam Wainwright, Dental Product Manager at Formlabs, told 3DPrint.com in an article about dental 3D printing predictions for 2022. “With affordable, easy to use 3D printing becoming even more valuable by constant innovation in materials and software, the dental industry is rapidly moving toward full digitization. Soon, 3D printers will become commonplace in the dental industry.”

Wainwright also spoke about dental 3D printing at our Additive Manufacturing Strategies summit in pre-pandemic 2020, noting that Formlabs wanted to “make treatments easier, better, and faster,” and the company’s new partnership with Medit will definitely help with that goal. To learn more about 3D printing in the dental industry, there’s still time to register for AMS 2022, taking place as a hybrid event both online and in New York City next week, March 1-3.