OPTIMUS 3D WILL MANUFACTURE CERVICAL DISC IMPLANTS IN TITANIUM

Optimus 3D, the private Peruvian clinic Clínica Alvarez and the Hospital Supplies Europa Pharmaceutical Company, based in Spain, have reached a collaboration agreement for the additive manufacturing in titanium of their new product, patented by Doctor Carlos Alvarez Peña, Neurosurgeon and founder of the Álvarez Clinic in Lima (Peru), a center specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of brain and spine diseases, to manufacture medical devices in titanium. This agreement represents an international leap in its activity for the firm located in the Álava Technology Park, which is added to the recent opening of a new headquarters in Barcelona.

The innovative product covered by the agreement is a revolutionary cervical disc implant made of titanium alloy that presents improvements compared to existing ones and that will have a direct and favorable impact on patients suffering from spinal hernias as well as disc degenerative processes.

"This is a medical device with a complex development whose manufacture (short and limited series) has not been feasible without additive manufacturing or 3D printing technologies", explains the company from Alava, which on this occasion will be in charge of implementing the titanium alloy type Ti-6AI-4V ELI from SLM (Selective Laser Melting) manufacturing, which will give the process great versatility that will allow the implant to be manufactured in a single component, without the need for auxiliary elements. In fact, the first fifty units have already left the Alava firm's facilities in the Álava Technology Park and are currently being validated through specific tests in Lima.

The high prevalence of problems of the cervical spine (herniated spine, degenerative disc processes, central cervical canal stenosis, foraminal stenosis, etc.) that today affect a large part of society, contextualizes the specific development of this new solution, "which is also more therapeutic, less invasive and easier to apply".

This first collaboration is the beginning of a relationship between the companies to be able to provide complementary services in both countries initially, and to later expand to the rest.