There is no one-size-fits-all-all in additive manufacturing. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the medical industry where every patient and case is different. So, shouldn’t technology be different, also? That theory was the guiding light when Stratasys set out to establish its Medical Solutions group back in 2015.
“Up until that time people used whatever Stratasys had as a generic product, a printer, a material, and they just utilized it for the medical industry,” Ido Bitan, Director of Product Management at Stratasys Medical Solutions Department told TCT. “Ever since the Medical department was incepted, we made a major transition.”
Over the last ten years, the additive manufacturing (AM) company has worked with users across the medical industry, from device companies to hospitals and universities, to identify their needs, the technology gaps, and application opportunities for medical devices, surgical aids, and lifelike anatomical models.
Medical is about people, and often, that can mean life or death. That plays “a dramatic role” in its innovation roadmap, according to Bitan. Its medical models, printed using its PolyJet technology in unique material combinations that vary in softness, flexibility and density to mimic the human body, are being deployed in complex pre-surgical planning and realistic scenarios for surgical training. Today, Stratasys offers the only 3D printing solution that provides a biomechanical report to show that its printed models, created using patient data, behave bio-mechanically like the real thing.