AKRON, OH, Aug 23, 2023 – Theken Companies, an Akron, OH-based family of medical device companies, announced its acquisition of VisionAir Solutions from Cleveland Clinic.

VisionAir Solutions creates patient-specific airway stents with its 3D-design platform. VisionAir 3D Patient-Specific Stents provide improved stent life, increased time between interventions, and reduced complications for an improved patient quality of life.

VisionAir 3D Stents are personalized by pulmonologists using innovative cloud software (VisionAir 3D Stent Architect). With this unique software a physician simply uploads a patient’s scans and receives a personalized silicone stent within days that fits the patient’s specific anatomy near to perfect. This allows physicians to tailor a 3D Stent to each patient’s unique anatomy to reduce complications caused by poorly-fitting stock silicone stents. Instead of an average stock stent life of 60 days, these patient-specific stents have an average life of years, although the VisionAir stent is clinically approved by the FDA for one year. To see how simple the process is, view the video here: https://www.visionairsolutions.com/videos#simple-as-1-2-3

VisionAir stents have broad indications for the treatment of symptomatic central airway obstruction (CAO) in mature individuals that are 22 years of age or older. 3D Stents may be implanted in any location in the airway that a physician can reach with a rigid bronchoscope for implantation. This means that the 3D Stent is unique in that it can be designed to fit carinas distal to the main carina, while current traditional silicone Y-stents have stock diameters, angles, and lengths specifically designed for only the main carina.

Randy Theken, founder of Theken Companies, said of the acquisition, “I was truly overwhelmed by the technology created by the VisionAir team at Cleveland Clinic. The VisionAir 3D Patient-Specific Stents provide significantly improved stent life and an improved patient quality of life. This is exciting not only for the pulmonary field, but for the potential to apply this technology to other medical devices.”

Thomas Gildea, MD, FCCP, FACP, of Cleveland Clinic and Inventor and head of the Clinical Advisory Team at VisionAir Solutions, stated, “We are excited to collaborate with Randy Theken and the new VisionAir team. They continue to share our vision of bringing innovative technology to as many patients as possible.” Cleveland Clinic has an equity interest in VisionAir and is entitled to royalty payments and other commercialization revenues from the company for technology developed at Cleveland Clinic. VisionAir is the developer and manufacturer of the stents. Dr. Gildea and others at Cleveland Clinic are inventors and are entitled to royalty payments and other commercialization revenues from the company in accordance with Cleveland Clinic policy.

About Theken Companies

Theken Companies, LLC is a family of medical device companies headquartered in Akron, OH. Theken has successfully founded over ten medical implant device companies since 1992. Three of these companies (Theken Spine LLC, Theken Disc LLC, Therics, LLC) were acquired in 2009 by Integra LifeSciences. Theken then founded five new medical device companies focused on joint replacements, medical ceramics, medical microelectronics, medical antimicrobial coatings, and medical 3D printing and manufacturing. Theken now adds VisionAir Solutions to its portfolio.

Learn more about Theken’s history at: www.theken.us.

About VisionAir Solutions

VisionAir 3D Stents are personalized silicone stents tailored to a patient’s unique airway anatomy and are manufactured using our proprietary cloud-based software and 3D-printed medical-grade silicone technology. It’s known as the “physicians’ preferred airway stent” because it has a patient-perfect fit, multi-year stent life, with reduced complications.

Learn more at: www.visionairsolutions.com.

DELHI, India, Aug 7, 2023 – Schneider Electric, the global leader in the digital transformation of Energy Management and NextGen Automation, has launched EcoStruxure for Healthcare, an IoT powered solution, for the enablement of a resilient healthcare ecosystem in India. The company aims to transform the healthcare ecosystem in the country by enabling un-interrupted power supply to hospitals and healthcare providers.

The solution has been developed to meet the goals of Ayushman Bharat Mission, which aims at creating a network of primary health centers across the country for democratizing healthcare with un-interrupted care. With healthcare sector’s heavy reliance on energy to provide positive health outcome to patients, it is imperative that any downtime in healthcare infrastructure can lead to catastrophic events including loss of life. The solution thus is crucial for delivering positive health outcomes, which has potential to fundamentally transform patient treatment.

Highlighting the need for digital transformation of healthcare, Dr. Dhan Singh Rawat, Hon’ble Minister Health & Education, Govt of Uttarakhand said, “Ayushman Bharat has been revolutionary for the people of India. Leveraging technology is key to enabling Ayushman Bharat Mission. We are constantly deliberating on the different technology solutions that can be implemented for healthcare resilience.”

Deepak Sharma, zone president – Greater India, MD & CEO Schneider Electric India said, “The global healthcare industry faces an array of challenges. Hospitals create significant environmental health impacts, both in upstream and downstream, from their service delivery. Government of India is focused on improving the healthcare infrastructure in the country, we believe sustainability should be at the core of this effort. Our endeavor is to be a leading digital solutions partner in this mission and journey. We are committed towards enabling a low carbon footprint for hospitals and healthcare infrastructure in India, enabling them to achieve significantly improved sustainability, resiliency, hyper-efficiency, and people-centricity outcomes. I thank the Honorable Minister, Dr. Dhan Singh Rawat, for his support and visionary leadership in driving the Ayushman Bharat Mission.”

Mr. Bhupesh Arora, business head digital energy, Schneider Electric India said, “Aligning ourselves with the vision of the country and its robust national health protection scheme, we take pride in introducing EcoStruxure IoT solution for Healthcare Industry that will enable resiliency and accessibility in healthcare systems across the country. Being a part of Ayushman Bharat’s vision of providing end-to-end healthcare solutions by integrating our technological advancements and optimized energy consumption, Schneider Electric is empowering healthcare providers and patients through our digital solutions.”

Access to Crucial Patient Data for increased healthcare efficacy

The EcoStruxure IoT Solution for Healthcare facilitates a seamless digital thread across all hospital assets thereby giving key decision makers a transparent view of day-to-day operations. The solution is also aimed at providing a hyper resilient system to tackle spike loads in both patient and thereby energy needs to enable 24/7 operational continuity to increase healthcare efficacy to even the remotest parts of the country. The IoT nature of the solution is aimed at helping access data across hospitals and even between hospital and healthcare providers to monitor operations and intervene, if necessary, all without any downtime.

Future Ready Solutions for Everyday and Extraordinary Events

EcoStruxure IoT solutions for Healthcare encompasses a future ready building management system which manages the complete lifecycle of the infrastructure from design and build to operations and maintenance. The system also empowers hospital and healthcare operators with sustainability, resiliency, hyper-efficiency, and people-centricity in the hospital infrastructure to tackle any extraordinary events and at all times.

About Schneider Electric

Schneider’s purpos­e is to empower all to make the most of our energy and resources, bridging progress and sustainability for all. Their mission is to be your digital partner for Sustainability and Efficiency. They drive digital transformation by integrating world-leading process and energy technologies, end-point to cloud connecting products, controls, software and services, across the entire lifecycle, enabling integrated company management, for homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure, and industries. They are the most local of global companies.

For more information, visit www.se.com.

BOSTON, MA, July 26, 2023 – Desktop Health, the trusted production-grade medical 3D printing brand of Desktop Metal, Inc., announced a breakthrough in bioprinting with the launch of PrintRoll, an innovative rotating build platform that can produce intelligent tubular solutions for the body’s vascular, digestive, respiratory, and reproductive channels on the 3D-Bioplotter premier bioprinting system.

Nicole Black, Ph.D., VP of Biomaterials and Innovation at Desktop Health, examines two tubular medical devices printed on the new 3D-Bioplotter PrintRoll rotating build platform in medical-grade materials. PrintRoll is designed to enable new medical solutions for the body’s thousands of miles of internal channels, such as vascular, digestive, and other systems. (Photo: Business Wire)

The 3D-Bioplotter is a highly sophisticated extrusion-based 3D printer that processes liquids, melts, pastes, gels, or other materials, including cells, through a needle tip on a Swiss-made, 3-axis gantry system with high accuracy and temperature, sterility, and design controls. 3D-Bioplotter offers eight printheads with the widest range of temperatures in bioprinting — from 2°C to 500°C (35.6°F to 932°F) — enabling complex, multi-material medical parts.

The PrintRoll add-on feature has been in development since 2019 as part of a collaboration with Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, a public research university in Mainz, Germany.

The PrintRoll rotating build platform for use with the Desktop Health 3D-Bioplotter is designed to bioprint complex cylindrical medical devices of different diameters, customized to the needs of young and adult patients. The device will enable bioprinting of medical solutions for the body’s thousands of miles of vascular, digestive, respiratory, and reproductive channels. (Photo: Business Wire)

“We are proud to offer the first bioprinting tool specifically designed to develop medical solutions for the thousands of miles of channels found in the human body,” said Ric Fulop, founder and CEO of Desktop Metal. “Desktop Health exists to deliver 3D printing solutions that improve patient lives, and we are confident that PrintRoll, offered exclusively on the 3D-Bioplotter, will enable all-new regenerative innovations. We look forward to seeing what our customers will create next with this exciting new tool.”

Visit TeamDM.com/3DBioplotterBrochure to see a video of the PrintRoll in action and download the latest 3D-Bioplotter brochure, which chronicles 20+ years of innovations on the bioprinter by regenerative medicine experts.

How PrintRoll Works

The PrintRoll platform attaches to the modular build plate of the 3D-Bioplotter and features a motor-driven rotating mandrel with spring-loaded, easily exchangeable drums of different sizes. Rotating speed is tightly controlled by the 3D-Bioplotter’s easy-to-use software.

As the PrintRoll tool rotates, the printhead moves back and forth depositing material on the surface in the desired design. For example, polycaprolactone (PCL), a medical-grade, biodegradable plastic used in many FDA-cleared implants and devices, hardens quickly on the drum after the melted material is printed. In bioprinting, users typically produce a structure or scaffold in a stiff or flexible biocompatible material that is designed to repair and integrate with cells of the body, sometimes degrading after a certain period of time.

The PrintRoll comes with a 10 mm diameter drum – with 20 mm and 40 mm sizes available – designed to accommodate the development of solutions for a variety of human channels, which vary based on age and gender. Standard diameter sizes generally correspond to the diameters of the femoral artery (~10 mm), trachea (~10-20 mm), fallopian tube (~5-15 mm), aorta (~25 mm) esophagus (~30 mm), and a range of intestine segments (~40-100 mm).

The PrintRoll system supports printing hollow cylindrical structures up to 140 mm in length, depending on the printhead used. Custom sizes may also be available.

“Up until now, the creation of thin-walled cylindrical devices with complex structured walls has been challenging to accomplish with regenerative materials, such as hydrogels,” said Nicole Black, Ph.D., VP of Biomaterials and Innovation at Desktop Health. “With the PrintRoll, materials are patterned directly on top of a substrate that rolls as the printhead also moves, supporting the deposited layers and therefore expanding the palette of materials that can be 3D printed into these important structures. Following printing, devices can be removed from the PrintRoll, leaving high-resolution and reproducible parts that customers have come to expect from the 3D-Bioplotter.”

The PrintRoll comes with a library of honeycomb designs and standard printing parameters for common materials. The PrintRoll platform, which is compatible with 4th Generation 3D-Bioplotter models, is available for pre-order now, with shipping expected in the fourth quarter. Contact Desktop Health to learn more at TeamDM.com/3DBioplotterMoreInfo.

3D-Bioplotter Continues Pioneering Bioprinting

PrintRoll continues the long history of bioprinting innovations on the world’s most researched bioprinting system, as detailed in the last 3D-Bioplotter brochure.

This tradition is also continued with CMFlex — the first 3D printed regenerative bone graft substitute product cleared by the FDA and the first such clearance based on manufacturing on the 3D-Bioplotter. Developed by Dimension Inx, CMFlex is an easy-to-use flexible bone graft product that is 3D printed on a standard 3D-Bioplotter Manufacturer model. This new product is an alternative to an autograft, in which a physician intrusively harvests bone from one area of a patient’s body to repair damaged or diseased bone elsewhere in the body.

“The recent FDA clearance of CMFlex by Dimension Inx is a breakthrough for the field of additive, regenerative medicine – one that clearly showcases the robustness of the 3D-Bioplotter,” said Lou Azzarra, President of Desktop Health. “Commercial milestones like this often take many years, and we congratulate the entire team at Dimension Inx on this achievement.”

Visit TeamDM.com/3DBioplotterBrochure to download our latest brochure, which details how Dimension Inx developed CMFlex for commercialization.

About Desktop Metal

Desktop Metal is driving Additive Manufacturing 2.0, a new era of on-demand, digital mass production of industrial, medical, and consumer products. Their innovative 3D printers, materials, and software deliver the speed, cost, and part quality required for this transformation. They’re the original inventors and world leaders of the 3D printing methods we believe will empower this shift, binder jetting and digital light processing. Today, their systems print metal, polymer, sand and other ceramics, as well as foam and recycled wood. Manufacturers use their technology worldwide to save time and money, reduce waste, increase flexibility, and produce designs that solve the world’s toughest problems and enable once-impossible innovations.

Learn more about Desktop Metal at www.desktopmetal.com.

^{1“Hence, 3D Bioplotter which was capable of cell-laden bioprinting, could be defined as the first commercial 3D bioprinter in the world.” Gu Z, Fu J, Lin H, He Y. Development of 3D bioprinting: From printing methods to biomedical applications. Asian J Pharm Sci. 2020 Sep;15(5):529-557. doi: 10.1016/j.ajps.2019.11.003. Epub 2019 Dec 17. PMID: 33193859; PMCID: PMC7610207. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7610207/}