Since the first pacemaker implanted in a patient 60 years ago, Additive Manufacturing remains the hottest technology to hit the medical device industry. Several reasons might explain why it is so appealing. One of them is the fact that a wide range of medical devices and parts for laboratory equipment are complex niche products that are only produced in small series. Another reason would be that AM has enabled an important step toward patient-specific medicine. However, advantages are almost always emphasised at the expense of real implications for both the doctor and the patient.
What are the considerations doctors should take into account to leverage additive manufacturing? What can they do if they do not have all the required expertise to utilize these technologies? What are the technology solutions that can be utilized in this specific field? What are the constraints for a vital industry like this one? So many questions surround this topic, so many questions that the next Additive Talks session aims to discuss. Set to take place on Wednesday 07th July from 03.30 pm to 04.30 pm CET, this virtual table will gather three industry experts from various profiles:
Nicolas Bouduban: he spent over 16 years in the medical industry, most of the time for DePuy Synthes in Switzerland as well as in the USA where he was responsible for several larger projects to develop medical devices. Nicolas holds a bachelor degree in Micro and Medical Technology from the Berne University of Applied Science, a Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Berne, a CAS in Doing Business in Asia from the EPFL as well as an Executive MBA in Management of Technology with Specialization in Medtech & Biotech also from the EPFL. Since 2019, Nicolas Bouduban is currently serving as the CEO of Swiss m4m, a technology transfer center dedicated to the MedTech industry. The mission of the Swiss m4m Center is to facilitate the adoption of additive manufacturing by providing services within an ISO 13485: 2016 certified environment.
Dr. Ruchi Pathak Kaul is a panelist with many hats. Known as the President of Women’s Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WICCI) in Science & Technology, for Haryana, India, she is the founder of Reconstructive Healthcare Solutions Pvt. Ltd. for development of Technologies in Surgery and the host of a podcast show called Surgeons in 3D Printing. However, her 14+year expertise as a maxillofacial surgeon who has a special interest in medical 3D printing is what will raise our audience’s attention the most as part of this panel.
With a PhD in Biomedical Sciences, a Master of Medical imaging and Bachelor in Electronic Engineering, our third panelist, Yi Sun has been working in the field of computer assistant surgery planning, with a focus on oral and maxillofacial surgery since 2007. His main professional interest is to integrate 3D technologies in the clinical workflow to develop new medical treatment methods and to carry out clinical research. This involves computer assisted surgical planning, 3D design and 3D printing of surgical template, patient specific implant and image-guided surgery. Until now he has successfully completed hundreds of complex reconstructive cases using 3D technology, which improved the surgical accuracy and reduced the surgical time. He published more than 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals and his research interests are 1) Reconstruct large defects in cranio-maxillofacial region; 2) design bio-mimic scaffold for bone regeneration. He is currently responsible for the 3D surgical simulation team in the department of oral and maxillofacial surgery (UZ Leuven), a university hospital in Belgium.
Interested in listening to what those high-profile experts have to say on the topic?