Ron Zownir, manufacturing engineer at OKAY Industries.

Francesco Robotti, technology and business development manager at Lincotek Medical.

Greg Paulsen, director of application engineering at Xometry.

Dan Owens, VP innovation and technology and Dan Blum, VP/GM Pierceton Campus, Paragon Medical.

Ben Johnson, VP, portfolio & regulatory, healthcare, 3D Systems.

Cody Cochran, co-founder and general manager of Azoth.

Justin Bushko, principal at Concise Engineering.

To take a closer look at the AM/3D printing sector, MPO spoke with eight experts in the field: The market has been exciting since its inception, and although it lagged behind somewhat for medical device manufacturing due to associated regulatory concerns, 3D printing has become an invaluable resource for device makers looking for a way to manufacture technologies with complex geometries. This has led to a cavalcade of specialty manufacturers that employ AM among their services, and other firms entirely dedicated to the process. As a result of the burgeoning method, AM is much more in demand. Interbody fusion cages have been highly impacted by the additive manufacturing (AM) process, with many firms utilizing the manufacturing method to create porous structures that facilitate fusion. “No one understands 3D-printing like Stryker-the fact that they’ve been able to dial in the right mix of small, medium, and large pores in a reproducibly randomized matrix is incredible,” Bala Giri, M.D., president and founder of the Texas Neuro Spine Institute, told the press. Tritanium accomplishes this by mimicking cancellous bone, promoting bone regeneration and fusion.

The result is an implant composed of what Stryker calls Tritanium, a highly porous titanium material designed for bone in-growth biological fixation. The anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF) implant is 3D-printed via a proprietary process Stryker introduced years ago called AMagine additive implant manufacturing. In early October, Stryker released the latest addition to its portfolio of 3D-printed implants, the Monterey AL interbody system.

Fine print printing