A young man was involved in a road traffic accident. He suffered from serious injuries of the facial skeleton, and could not move his lower jaw. Only an implant could help the patient. An individual prosthesis was designed for him and produced by a team of engineers from the company ChM. All this was done in cooperation with doctors from the Voivodeship Hospital in Białystok.
The surgery conducted in 2019, during which a 3D printed temporomandibular joint implant was used, was the first surgery of its kind in north-eastern Poland. After a few weeks of convalescence, the patient’s dream came true: he could bite an apple.
"The company from Lewickie is a pioneer in using 3D printing in the field of traumatology and orthopaedics, and has been printing personalised implants and surgical instruments for many years now. The innovative solutions developed by ChM are used by doctors from 35 countries. ‘Our priorities are product innovation and patient safety, and, therefore, around 9-10% of our revenue is earmarked for developing new products and improving the existing ones,’ said Andrzej Sobolewski, the Development Director at ChM."
"The research and development team of ChM is moving to a new facility soon. It was built with the help of EU funds. ‘Our direct competitors are large medical device companies. We cannot compete with them in terms of funds allocated for research and development, but we believe that we are able to provide Polish specialists with optimal conditions for development of product and process innovations as well,’ stressed Andrzej Sobolewski."
The new facility means not only ultramodern equipment and research instruments, but also a chance for all the company’s organisational units involved in the creation and development of innovations to work together in one place. This will enable ChM to introduce products awaited by patients even more rapidly.
Medicine among pioneers
14 billion dollars is the value forecasted by Global Market Insights to be reached by the global 3D printing materials and equipment market by 2024. Apart from the automotive, aviation and electronics industries, medicine is one of the driving forces behind this growth.
Gallery
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Top notch implants and orthopaedics tools
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Development of new products is the priority
Details
Programme
Smart Growth Programme
EU Fund
European Regional Development Fund
Project
Establishment of the Research and Development Centre of ChM
Project cost
PLN 24.2 million, including PLN 7.8 million from the European Regional Development Fund