Entrepreneurial manuals tell you to look around for a need that should be addressed and find a way to address it. 3D printing has given many entrepreneurs the tools to answer a wider set of needs than ever before. Each answer allows us to address an even wider set of needs and this virtuous cycle is moving faster and faster, with great benefits, especially for those most in need.
This accurately describes 3D Pediatrics, a startup formed through incubator Dreamit Ventures’ one-year program with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). The program is called Open Canvas@CHOP and it took just four months for a think tank of pediatric specialists to go from the idea of addressing the issue of lack of medical devices tailored for children to creating a start up to use 3D printing and do something about it.
Dr. Jorge Galvez, an anesthetist at CHOP and an assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, began collaborating with University of Pennsylvania engineering students Nicholas McGill and Michael Rivera after they won a challenge by the Society for Technology in Anesthesia. The result was 3D Pediatrics, a company that intends to produce a repository of 3D printing applications created by pediatric physicians across different specialties, including cardiology, anesthesiology, as well as ear, nose and throat devices and interventional radiology.
The need to fulfill in this case is that pediatrics tends to be an area overlooked by medical companies, as children represent a relatively small market not fit for mass production. Adapting a medical device for a child who is still growing may be very problematic but the new logics of digital additive manufacturing perfectly adapt to small series and – even better – to personalized production based on CT scan or MRI data.
The E-nable project is a perfect example. The global volunteer network implemented 3D printing to make hand prosthesis available to children all over the world, slashing the cost of a basic personalized prostheses from close to 10.000 to little over 50 dollars. With the help of pediatricians and medical experts, a similar concept could be applied for a range of tailored devices for children and that is exactly what 3D Pediatrics intends to do.
As Galvez told MedCityNews, “the real difficulty in this case is not so much related to using the 3D scanning, 3D modelling and 3D printing tools, as much as having the knowledge and expertise to know what the needs of each medical speciality are”. In other words: know the needs and address them through 3D printing. The virtuous cycle goes on.
