Dental News - H3D seeks to remedy technician shortage with AI CAD for dental laboratories

Dental Tribune International

Mon. 6. March 2023

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MELBOURNE, Australia: H3D, a leading provider of artificial intelligence-assisted CAD (AI CAD) to the hearing aid industry, has announced that it is now developing solutions that are tailored to dental laboratories. H3D’s entry into dentistry is supported by partnerships with providers of dental laboratory solutions, and it aims to address a shortage of CAD technicians and allow dental laboratories to grow their business.

H3D named its dental industry partners as laboratory solutions providers Modern Dental Pacific and Andent, and orthodontics laboratory specialist Ortodonzia Estense. The company said in a statement that it would be focusing on dental laboratories rather than dental clinics and that it would place a strong emphasis on quality. According to H3D, dental laboratories have been increasingly neglected as a consequence of dental CAD companies prioritising CAD solutions for clinics and chairside.

H3D’s AI CAD for splints will be released in the third quarter of this year. (Image: H3D)

“Laboratories are the gold standard in terms of quality levels, and our ambition is to create the world’s best AI CAD, so partnering with them was a natural choice for us,” commented Damian Png, director of H3D’s dental business unit.

The company said that its offering to dental laboratories will help to address a shortage of CAD technicians and enable dental laboratories to scale their business. H3D said that its software can enable hundreds of orders to be processed within minutes and can be operated by laboratory staff who are not CAD technicians.

Iain Mcleod, CEO at H3D, said: “We are regularly approached by 3D printing companies, intra-oral scanner companies and resellers. For them, CAD is holding back the industry, so solving this bottleneck is hugely important.”

James Squirrell, CEO of Modern Dental Pacific, commented: “H3D’s AI CAD has the potential to be hugely impactful for our industry. It will enable us to significantly increase our production and overcome the capacity issues caused by the shortage of CAD designers. It will also facilitate the transition from thermoformed to digital splints, resulting in better quality products for dentists and patients.”

“[Our] ambition is to create the world’s best AI CAD” – Damian Png, director of H3D’s dental business unit

H3D said that its AI CAD for splints will be released in the third quarter of this year and that CAD for crowns, dentures and clear aligners will follow. The company is currently accepting expressions of interest for its innovators’ programme, which provides early access to the AI CAD product as well as discounted pricing.

H3D hopes to repeat in dentistry the rapid success that it experienced in the audio market. Since its founding in 2021 in Australia, the maker of custom-fitted medical devices has become a leading provider of AI CAD automation technologies to major audio brands such as Sennheiser and Amplifon.