Glassell Park-based SprintRay Inc., which sells 3D printing machines to dental offices, has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance for its machines to print porcelain crowns.

The approval gives SprintRay an entry into the lucrative restorative dentistry market, allowing dental offices to 3D print crowns onsite while patients wait. Up until now, the focus has been mostly on the smaller market of nightguards.

“The market size for crowns is about 10 times the size of the nightguard market,” said Amir Mansouri, SprintRay’s chief executive.

There are about 40 million crowns produced each year – virtually all of them in specialized labs, Mansouri said. Dental practices have to send a patient’s tooth and mouth measurements to the lab, which then must ship the crowns back out, a process that can take several weeks.

“Now, our machine can print out a crown in the dentist’s office in 10 or 20 minutes,” Mansouri said, adding that not only does it save dental practices time, but it cuts down on return patient visits for crown installation.

USC roots

Mansouri founded SprintRay in 2014 – when he was a doctoral student in engineering at the University of Southern California – along with fellow USC student Jing Zhang and industrial designer Hossein Bassir. Together, the trio raised nearly $450,000 through an online Kickstarter campaign and after some exploration, decided to focus on dental products.

“We saw that 3D printing is great for mass-customization and there is no other industry that customizes to the extent that dentistry does,” Mansouri said.

In another key decision, SprintRay chose to focus on dental offices, not dental labs. Mansouri said, there are many more dental offices than labs. Also, he said, selling to dental offices could allow those offices to bypass dental labs entirely and make the dental products themselves.

The company grew steadily over the next decade, focusing mostly on enabling dental practices to 3D print nightguards, along with teeth alignment devices, dentures and ceramic crowns used for rear teeth.

Today, SprintRay is one of a handful of companies that sell 3D printing machines to dental-related businesses. Last year, the company posted about $142 million in sales.

Mansouri said that one of the barriers to entry has been the inability to 3D print porcelain crowns, which is perhaps the single biggest restorative dental market segment. While ceramic crowns can be used on rear teeth like molars, porcelain is widely viewed as the best material for the life-like appearance of visible front-facing teeth, which is the heart of cosmetic dentistry.

Mansouri said two technical breakthroughs helped overcome this obstacle. First was the development of suitable porcelain material that can be fed into 3D printers. Then, he said, artificial intelligence was applied to design the highly individualized shape of the crown.

Last month, the FDA cleared SprintRay’s use of porcelain material for the 3D printing of crowns. Mansouri said the new printing technology will be ready for marketing to dental offices later this year.

3D printing cosmetic dentistry products

This new application will be welcomed by Kerri Hill, founder of the Art of Dental Wellness, a boutique dental practice in Beverly Hills that specializes in implants and cosmetic dentistry. Hill said her practice has been using SprintRay’s 3D printing technology for nearly four years after she learned about it through social media.

“Upon learning about SprintRay’s 3D printing, one of the things that really excited me was the idea that I would not have to rely as heavily on having lab technicians physically come into the office to do pickup impressions for conversion dentures,” Hill said. “The ability to digitally design and print so much of the workflow in-house felt incredibly innovative and efficient to me.”

Hill said she was hooked after trying the SprintRay machine to print both conversion dentures and nightguards. But it still took some time to train her staff on how to use the 3D printing machines.

“It evolved into a fully integrated part of our practice and completely changed the way we approach restorative and digital dentistry,” she said. “The ability to fabricate these restorations and appliances with speed, precision, and customization has significantly enhanced both our workflow efficiency and the patient experience.”

Appealing to dental practices

Located in one of the country’s most elite markets, Hill’s dental practice can easily afford the $15,000 upfront investment in a 3D printing machine. Mansouri said that it has been more challenging to get the HMO dental practices in middle- and low-income communities to adopt the technology.

One approach has been to boost education of dental practices. The company earlier this year partnered with Tempe, Arizona-based Align Technology, which makes “Invisalign.”

Mansouri said he’s also considering introducing subscription plans later this year.

“This is reimbursable from most insurance plans, but that’s a lot of work,” he said. “Better to make it more affordable up front.”