Nearly 68% of leg prosthesis users experience problems with their prosthesis (pain, skin irritation, sores), issues that can render a device unusable for extended periods. The liner, the often-overlooked interface between residual limb and prosthetic socket, sits at the heart of this problem. Until now, O&P professionals have had to navigate an uncomfortable trade-off: standardized liners that fall short on fit, or costly, time-consuming custom fabrications. Ottobock’s new iconiq silicone liner is designed to make that choice obsolete. For those not familiar with the company, note that Ottobock has spent over a century redefining human mobility.
Unveiled at OTWorld in Leipzig, iconiq is Ottobock’s first 3D-printed silicone liner. The workflow starts with a single 3D scan of the residual limb which generates a dataset accounting for individual anatomy, sensitive areas, and scar tissue. The file is uploaded to Ottobock’s ordering platform and transferred directly to production. The result: a precisely fitting, flexible liner, manufactured without mold construction.
Over the past decade, Ottobock has built a comprehensive digital ecosystem around 3D printing through its iFab (“individual fabrication”) program, which turns fitting and fabrication into a fully digital flow using 3D scanning, CAD modelling, and industrial SLS. The company has also acquired a majority stake in plus medica OT, a Düsseldorf-based specialist in 3D-printed orthoses active since 2015, further embedding additive capabilities into its operations.
iconiq is one application that reveals how a specially developed 3D silicone printing technology and an efficient digital process create leaner workflows, delivering more consistent, personalized results and reproducible quality for O&P professionals. As CTO Arne Jörn put it: “We are industrializing customization so that it no longer becomes the exception, but the norm in everyday care.”
For the additive manufacturing industry, iconiq illustrates how AM’s real value proposition in regulated, patient-critical markets is the ability to scale clinical precision without sacrificing it.
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