Dentsply Sirona’s Gene Dorff Discusses His Company’s Intelligent Implant Solutions

At last month’s Dentsply Sirona World 2021 in Las Vegas, Denstply Sirona launched its new DS PrimerTaper self-tapping implant along with a comprehensive restage of its implants business. In the Q&A below, Gene Dorff, the company’s Group Vice President Implants Product Group, answers questions about these key developments.

There are 3 essential factors for the success of implant treatment: the clinical expertise of the dental professionals, high-quality products used in the process, and structured and seamless workflows that intelligently combine the first 2 factors for a long-term healthy and esthetically pleasing result. Dorff explains the considerations behind this concept.

Q: With PrimeTaper you are presenting an innovative concept for dental implant therapy. What is the relevance of this market for Dentsply Sirona?

A: The needs of our customers and their patients are the key driver. Fortunately, people are living longer, have a keen awareness of their oral health and want a healthy smile – for life. This can be achieved in a number of ways, including good oral hygiene, teeth straightening with aligners treatments, and esthetic replacements for natural teeth lost due to trauma or age. Dentists have been solving the latter problem with implants for several years. As a result, implants and complex restorations are among the fastest growing areas in dentistry.

These complex procedures can be made easier, safer and more efficient through the use of digital technology. As a company, we recognized this potential early on. "Digital" is our key competence. Dental practitioners have relied on the quality and safety of our products and digital technologies for years. More than 20 million patients have already benefited from DS Implants. Our excellent track record gives us the confidence that we can move implant dentistry forward – with excellent products, cutting-edge workflows and, of course, with continuing education and training.

Related reading: Dentsply Sirona Launches DS PrimeTaper, Announces Comprehensive Restage of its Implant Business

Q: What trends do you see in dental implantology?

A: Dentists who want to provide their patients with implants, bridges, and dentures face several challenges including long-term survival and esthetics of the restoration, simple and safe treatment procedures, and efficiency.

At Dentsply Sirona, we’re seeing the real value digital technologies provide, especially in treatment planning, manufacture of restorations, and the security it offers clinicians by making the processes simple and accurate. As an example, surgery guides and temporary restorations can be produced digitally from one file in advance of the patient treatment. Ultimately, the aim is to combine the many procedure steps within implant dentistry in a way that is beneficial for everyone involved – including the dental technician. We call this "connecting the dots". It is not just about improving a single product, but about providing intelligent, logical workflows that are intuitive, reliable, accurate and improve the predictability of treatment results.

Q: Dentsply Sirona is already a leader in the implant market with well-known brands. What exactly do you want to change?

A: Ankylos, XiVE, Astra and Astra EV as well as MIS are indeed strong brands appreciated by our customers. But they are more or less individual brands that stand alone in our company. In order to present a full spectrum of solutions for implant dentistry to our customers it is

important to harmonize our implant business under the Dentsply Sirona brand and connect the many individual parts that create value and trust. This will include our outstanding new product, DS PrimeTaper, and proven signature workflow solutions for implant dentistry.

Our goal is to be the first “digitally native company” to help our customers simplify complex processes and workflows with digital technology and coordinated procedures so that they become a regular part of their daily work as a natural consequence. This enables Dentists and Technicians to provide better Oral Health and esthetic outcomes to patients.