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Market Intel: How 3D Printing Can Enhance And Expand Medtech Opportunities

 
• By Clemens Moeller, Christophe Durand, and Scott Rader

3D printing has been hailed as a potentially game-changing technology for different industries. Biomedical applications, in particular, have garnered much attention when patients were able to receive 3D-printed, customized, lifesaving medical interventions. But aside from these niche markets for personalized medical devices, can 3D printing ever become mainstream in health care? This article, a guest column from leaders at the Boston Consulting Group, explores what the benefits of 3D-printed devices are and how they are driving the uptake of this technology. It also assesses how fast this adoption is happening and evaluates how – and in which biomedical applications and device markets – 3D printing could best enhance products and allow medtech manufacturers to grow their business.

3D prinitng in progress
The 3D printing revolution is unfolding in the biomedical arena • Source: Shutterstock

The buzz around 3D printing is growing increasingly louder and the market opportunity this technology can bring to medtech manufacturers is certainly real. The global market for joint reconstruction and replacement is expected to increase to $16bn by 2018. The global market for prescription lenses is valued at approximately $13bn today. Spinal implants are a $9bn market. All of these clinical areas have the potential to be enhanced by 3D-printing technologies.

3D printing has already demonstrated its value across a wide range of industries beyond health care. Companies are using 3D printing to develop products with complex designs that are difficult or impossible to create using traditional manufacturing approaches. These companies better manage the cost of goods sold by eliminating post-processing and assembly steps. And they cost-effectively create "units of one" on demand, since 3D-printing costs remains relatively stable regardless of how many units are printed (unlike casting or injection molding)

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