Formlabs Adds 2 New Materials for Dental and Medical Applications

Formlabs has added 2 new materials for dental and medical applications available for the company’s Form 3B, Form 3B+, and Form 3BL printers: Dental LT Comfort Resin and Biomed Durable Resin. With these additions, the company expands its library of over 40 3D printing materials designed to advance personalized patient care for point-of-care facilities, dental and orthodontic practices and labs, and medical device makers.

Dental LT Comfort Resin is a new durable and flexible material for long-term occlusal splints, nightguards, and bleaching trays. This material was designed to provide patient comfort, fit, and durability against wear, to make a clinical impact—improving patient compliance to a treatment plan and requiring fewer patient follow-up visits. With this latest addition to Formlabs Dental’s comprehensive dental platform, the company is continuing to provide superior, affordable, and easy-to-use materials to practices and labs.

With Dental LT Comfort, dental and orthodontic labs, and dental practices can now directly print flexible splints that are long-term biocompatible, comfortable for the patient, and require little polishing to reach high optical transparency for long-term use.

Practices can easily, efficiently, and economically scan patients and create a comfortable, superior surface finish splint within hours to lower costs and increase ROI.

"When I had the opportunity to beta-test the Dental LT Comfort from Formlabs Dental, I was amazed,” says Stephan Kreimer, Director of Kreimer Dentallabor GmbH & Co. KG. “The material's pre-polished appearance and exceptional translucency right after printing significantly reduced post-processing time. Furthermore, I was impressed by its fracture resistance and flexibility, which ensure optimal comfort, making it the perfect choice for dental splints."

Formlabs’ biocompatible resins, including BioMed Clear Resin, BioMed White Resin, and more, have been widely used in healthcare applications from surgical guides to anatomical models, the company states. To meet demand for mass personalization and patient-specific devices, procedure-specific instruments, and medical devices, they now introduce BioMed Durable Resin, a new formulation developed specifically to address the need for a biocompatible material that can withstand impact, rough handling, and pressure.

Dental LT Comfort Resin is a new durable and flexible material for long-term occlusal splints, nightguards, and bleaching trays.

Patient-specific instruments (PSI) designed for unique patient anatomy have been shown to improve patient outcomes by 16% when using guides, reducing complications by almost 30%, according to Formlabs. In addition, personalized devices increase precision which lowers operating times and improves patient outcomes. BioMed Durable Resin is designed to expand 3D printing in healthcare with impact-, shatter-, and abrasion-resistant properties and excellent clarity and surface finish, making it ideal for biocompatible and durable PSIs and customizable surgical instruments, such as medical devices that can be hit with a surgical mallet or shaken with a cutting saw.

At TechFit, a PSI provider that works with physicians to design and 3D print surgical instrumentation, CEO and co-founder Mauricio Toro likes the results he’s gotten from the material.

“We see Biomed Durable Resin as an ideal platform for the printing of single-use, patient-specific surgical instrumentation,” says Toro. “The increased mechanical properties provide more design flexibility and increased indications while maintaining the biological properties required for reliably producing the best surgical results.”

BioMed Durable Resin is a USP Class VI material, made in an FDA-registered, ISO 13485 facility and can be used in applications for long-term skin, and short-term tissue, bone, and dentin contact. Dental LT Comfort Resin (U.S. only) and BioMed Durable Resin are available now.

"At Formlabs, we are continuously empowering our customers to push the boundaries in 3D printing," says Guillaume Bailliard, president at Formlabs. "With the release of these 2 new materials, we're proud to expand our material library and enable dental and healthcare professionals and engineers to push the boundaries of device development.”