Medical, dental hold the largest combined share in metal 3D printing service bureau revenues by end user, according to report.

“Metal 3D Printing Services: Service Revenues, Printer Purchases and Materials Consumption – 2018 To 2027” released by Smartechmarkets covers:

New directions and strategies for service bureaus: Metal printing is challenging and expertise in this area may protect service bureau from losing business to end users who buy their own printers. Some service bureaus believe additive manufacturing is a tool that can take market share from traditional metal working firms. Will the new desktop metal printing technology create new opportunities for service bureaus?

Metal powder firm strategies for the service bureau sector: These strategies include both increasing sales of metal powders to service bureau and growing metal powder businesses by entering the service bureau directly.

\ Service bureau opportunities for traditional third-party suppliers – hybrid manufacturing strategies: Some traditional machine shops have become early adopters of metal additive manufacturing. Metal 3D printing processes are increasingly used by third-party parts and prototype firms, leading to hybrid manufacturing arrangements incorporating 3D printing along with established processes such as casting.

The future of 3D printer makers in the metal service bureau industry: Selling more metal machines to service bureaus, while strengthening their own metal service offerings.

This report provides 10-year forecasts of service provider revenues, broken out by type of service provider; along with the projections of printers, processes, and the types of metals used by service providers of different types. In addition, we analyze the future goals and strategies of leading firms – including printer makers – who make metal 3DP services a major part of their business activities.

The team will collaborate with the University of Pittsburgh to expand existing research, develop brain computer interfaces that restore the sense of touch.

Nathan Copeland, who was paralyzed from the chest down in a car accident, controls a prosthetic arm and hand at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Credit: Pitt/UPMC

A team of researchers at the University of Chicago has received a $3.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to help develop robotic arms patients can control with their minds that receive sensory feedback from attached prosthetic hands.

The new grant is part of a combined $7 million awarded to UChicago, Pitt, and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) to continue their collaboration developing prosthetics with a brain computer interface (BCI) for paralyzed patients. In 2016, the team demonstrated how a clinical trial participant was able to control a robotic arm with his mind and regain the sense of touch through its hand.

The new grant will expand the clinical trial to UChicago, where the project will be led by Sliman Bensmaia, PhD, who studies the sense of touch, and Nicho Hatsopoulos, PhD, who researches how the brain directs movement in the limbs. John Downey, PhD, a staff scientist in Bensmaia's lab who formerly worked with the Pitt team, will coordinate research activities. Neurosurgeon Peter Warnke, MD, will perform surgical procedures to implant the devices, and Raymond Lee, MD, a physical rehabilitation specialist from Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital in Chicago, will recruit subjects and provide guidance on the patient population involved.

"Our goal is to create a prosthesis that has the same dexterity and functionality as the natural human hand," Bensmaia says. "UChicago has the benefit of years of experience with both motor neuroscience and somatosensory research, and we look forward to continuing that work with our partners at Pitt and UPMC."

The research team at Pitt and UPMC is led by Michael Boninger, MD, and includes Jennifer Collinger, PhD, Robert Gaunt, PhD, and Elizabeth Tyler-Kabara, MD, PhD. That team has worked with two Pittsburgh area clinical trial participants since 2012, both of whom had paralysis of their arms and hands. The new project will recruit two more such patients at each site.

The robotic neuroprosthetic system works by implanting arrays of electrodes in areas of the brain that control movement and process the sense of touch from a natural limb. The electrodes pick up activity in neurons as the patient thinks about moving their own arm to direct the robotic arm to move accordingly. The prosthetic hand is fitted with sensors to detect sensations of touch, such as pressing on individual fingertips, which in turn generates electrical signals that stimulate the appropriate areas of the brain.

The prosthetics will incorporate years of research by Bensmaia and Hatsopoulos on how the nervous system interprets sensory feedback, directs limbs to move and perceives them in space. Bensmaia's lab has developed software algorithms to recreate the sense of touch with the BCI using a biomimetic approach that mimics the way someone's natural nervous system would communicate signals from the hand to the brain. Hatsopoulos studies motor control and how brain cells work together to coordinate and learn complex movements of the arm and hand.

"BCI control in the past has focused on moving the limb in free space. Our project will attempt to solve the difficult challenge of controlling the hand when it comes in contact with and manipulates objects," Hatsopoulos says.

The research team at UChicago will continue to refine the previous work with their partners in Pittsburgh to incorporate greater dexterity and more precise movements into the prosthetics.

"Having a human patient lets us do all kinds of things we couldn't do before," Bensmaia says. "You can probe the quality of sensations being invoked by asking them what they feel. You can sculpt movements to make more natural and precise. This opens a new world for us here at the University of Chicago."

FDA awards $5 million to pediatric device consortium co-led by Children’s National and University of Maryland, College Park.

Washington – To foster development, production, and marketing of next-generation medical devices designed to meet growing pediatric needs, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) awarded $5 million to the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI), led by Children’s National Health System and University of Maryland, College Park.

New Consortium members include BioHealth Innovation Inc., a Maryland-based innovation intermediary that supports the transformation of research projects into new business opportunities, and MedTech Innovator, a California-based virtual startup accelerator that matches healthcare industry leaders with early-stage and emerging growth medtech companies for mentorship and support. NCC-PDI’s affiliated members include industry leaders such as Smithwise, Epidarex, and Cadence. 

The Consortium’s multi-disciplinary principal investigator team includes: Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., MBA, PMP, project lead, and Anthony Sandler, M.D., from Children’s National; and William E. Bentley, Ph.D., from the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices at  the University of Maryland, College Park. 

“The key to ensuring the next generation of adults are healthy is to ensure children enjoy the best health,” says Eskandanian, vice president and chief innovation officer at Children’s National and the lead principal investigator of NCC-PDI. “That means underwriting and marketing life-saving devices like stents and heart valves, designed with children’s growing bodies in mind, and shepherding such innovations through the challenging path to regulatory approval.”  

Medical devices designed for people who are younger than 22 travel a slower path to market and there are fewer pediatric medical devices compared with devices used by adults. Adding to the complexity of device development, pediatric devices must be sized appropriately as children transform from newborns to toddlers to adolescents and young adults.

“While exciting advances are being made in medical technologies for adults, crucial pediatric innovations often languish in areas like asthma, heart disease, and neonatal health,” says Paul Grand, CEO of MedTech Innovator. “We are excited to bring the resources of our global accelerator to identify and advance best-in-class pediatric technologies, to ensure they reach the market and improve the health of the millions of children who need them most.”

NCC-PDI – like other nonprofit consortia funded by the FDA in Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and San Francisco – encourages innovative pediatric devices by providing business, regulatory, legal, scientific, engineering, and clinical expertise to strengthen pediatric device applications submitted to the FDA. Under a five-year grant renewed by the FDA’s Office of Orphan Products Development, NCC-PDI will: 

“Partnership, shared knowledge, and collaboration are vital to our overall progress. This month’s grant renewal makes all that possible,” Eskandanian adds. “Because of our ongoing collaborations with federal regulators, academic centers, pediatric leaders, device manufacturers, and potential investors, Children’s National is uniquely positioned to draw together diverse stakeholders who share our goal of strengthening pediatric device innovation.”

In fulfilling its mission, NCC-PDI annually hosts the “Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!” competition in an effort to award funds and device development technical support to those innovations that address a significant unmet need for children and are deemed to be commercially viable. To date, NCC-PDI has awarded $1.43 million to 31 startups and research labs and supported more than 80 pediatric medical devices.

“Many of the health challenges that impact pediatric populations require unique resources, treatment, and expertise,” Bentley says. “NCC-PDI is a vital partnership in that it fosters innovation and knowledge-sharing between innovators, researchers, clinicians, and policymakers, all for the betterment of children’s health. The Fischell Institute is proud to support NCC-PDI’s mission by utilizing our resources, facilities, and expertise to help usher pediatric medical devices to market from the earliest stages of ideation through navigating the regulatory process.”

Legislation passed by Congress in 2007 established the funding to be distributed as grants for nonprofit consortia to help stimulate projects to promote the development and availability of pediatric medical devices. This legislation was re-authorized as part of the FDA Safety and Innovation Act of 2012 and again in the FDA Reauthorization Act of 2017 to run through fiscal year 2022.

FibriCheck uses the camera of a smartphone or the optical sensors of a smartwatch to detect heartbeats and derive a heart rhythm.

Brussels – Belgium-based Qompium’s FibriCheck smartphone application for the detection of heart rhythm disorders has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance, becoming the first FDA-approved app for heart rhythm disorders using only an optical signal originating from a non-medical device such as a smartphone.

FibriCheck uses the camera of a smartphone or the optical sensors of a smartwatch to detect heartbeats and derive a heart rhythm. This technique is based on photoplethysmography (PPG). By using artificial intelligence in combination with medical software, FibriCheck can carry out an accurate analysis of the heart rhythm and inform the user and/or the physician about this condition.

The main purpose of FibriCheck is to detect atrial fibrillation, a disorder that affects 1 out of 4 adults and has a five-fold increase for having a cerebrovascular stroke. By using the FibriCheck technology, the user can timely detect atrial fibrillation and correct therapy can be provided.

A unique filing The FibriCheck-file was unique in its kind as it’s the first time the FDA approved a smartphone application to detect heart rhythm disorders without using any external medical devices. To receive this FDA clearance, FibriCheck had to demonstrate its accuracy compared to traditional technology to detect these heart rhythm disorders using an electrocardiogram or ECG. FibriCheck succeeded in achieving equal accuracy results compared to a state-of-the-art external device that connects to a smartphone with two electrodes to record a single lead ECG.

In 2016 FibriCheck received its European Class IIa clearance and earlier this year FibriCheck opened a satellite office in San Francisco to prepare for U.S. market entry. Since then, several business development activities have been set up to integrate FibriCheck’s underlying technology in existing hardware platforms.

How does FibriCheck work? Users place a finger on the camera of the smartphone for 1 minute. The camera measures the light reflection caused by the blood that is flowing in the fingertip, PPG. Based on this, a signal is constructed which represents the pulse signal. After each measurement the user is prompted to enter his symptoms (if any) and the data is sent to an online platform where artificial intelligence (AI) ensures an accurate diagnosis of the heart rhythm. Next, data is processed in such a way they can be interpreted by a healthcare professional or a remote monitoring center. Finally, the diagnostic results are aggregated into a report that contains all the necessary information and a recommendation for a call to action, if needed.

Currently, FibriCheck can only be used through the means of an access token/code issued by a healthcare organization or provider. This enables clinical follow-up in a controllable way. Alternative modes of operation are currently being implemented.

Heidenhain offers online learning program; Open Mind attending Okuma America’s Winter Showcase; XJet opens Additive Manufacturing Center; Forest City Gear using Niton XRF Analyzer.

Cleveland, Ohio – Forest City Gear can now perform fast, comprehensive analysis and verification of metal alloys for quality assurance and control using its new Thermo Scientific Niton XRF Analyzer. The Niton XRF Analyzer enables Forest City Gear to quickly and easily verify that the metal alloys used in barstock and/or near net shape blanks received from outside suppliers meet specifications before gears are produced.  It can also be used to confirm that the chemical composition of metal alloys after heat treat meets requirements. The Analyzer can even be used to verify the plating thickness over metal to ensure that plating performed by outside vendors conforms to specification.

XJet Ltd. has opened an 8,000ft2 Additive Manufacturing Center in Rehovot Science Park, Israel. Comprised entirely of XJet Carmel AM systems, the AM Center will support XJet in developing new 3D printing materials and applications. Using the company’s NanoParticle Jetting (NPJ) technology, the XJet Carmel AM series allows manufacturers to produce ceramic or metal parts with the ease and versatility of inkjet printing. The NPJ technology produces highly complex parts with superfine details, smooth surfaces, and pinpoint accuracy. Cavities and fine details can be created with no concern that they will be harmed in the support-removal process, as a separate material is used for support structures, a material that easily disintegrates post printing. 

Open Mind Technologies AG will be participating in the annual Winter Showcase at the Partners in Thinc and Okuma America Corp. headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, Nov. 28-29, 2018 from 9am to 4pm each day and registration, which starts at 8:30am, is free for the event.

Winter Showcase attendees will have the opportunity to meet with Open Mind representatives and all the members of the Partners in Thinc collaboration to see how the latest manufacturing technologies work together. Open Mind will have three hyperMILL CAD/CAM software demonstrations at Winter Showcase including creating a turn/mill part on an Okuma MULTUS B250II, an engine casing being produced with additive manufacturing (AM) on an Okuma MU-6300V LASER EX, and a 5-axis surfacing part featuring a lion, to be machined on the Okuma GENOS M460V-5AX machine.

Heidenhain’s newest multimedia online CNC controls learning program Heidenhain Interactive Training – HIT 3.0 – is used for providing advanced and apprentice-level skilled training for NC users using Heidenhain TNC protocols. Replacing HIT 2.0, this new online training program is launching a revised 3-axis machining learning program. With the new guided programming function, the user can gain realistic practice with Klartext programing and DIN/ISO programming within the learning packet. Errors in operation are excluded by the learning software, and users receive tips when they make incorrect entries. A help function, with which the respective solution can be checked, is also available as a feedback system. This feedback system determines how successfully an exercise or test has been performed.

HIT 3.0 uses HTML5 technology and can run in current HTML5-compatible browsers. For mobile end devices with Android and iOS operating systems, as well as for the Windows 10 operating system, the Moodle learning platform provides an app with which the learning content can be used offline as well. For this to work, the entire HIT learning software must first be downloaded to the app on the end device. The app is available in the Apple App Store, in the Google Play Store, and in the Microsoft Store (search for Moodle).

The Mitutoyo Institute of Metrology now provides free online standards-based calibration video training with the opportunity to earn certified credentials in dimensional calibration – a first of its kind in the United States. The online training videos are available for free with no obligation for testing.

Metrology professionals can now access all calibration training videos through the Mitutoyo America website or Mitutoyo America YouTube Channel. The training material leverages the available American Metrology Standards with best calibration practices at Mitutoyo. The first online course, “General Calibration Concepts, Micrometers and Calipers” is available online for free. Certified credentials are available in both theory and performance.

The Mitutoyo Institute of Metrology will continue to offer traditional classroom calibration certifications courses, as well.