3D printing made a powerful impression during the health crisis. The technology came to hospitals’ rescue by, among other things, producing single-use spare parts for ventilators, as well as for hospital personnel’s PPE.

One of the industrial players for the prototyping, Bone 3D is behind the Paris Public Hospital (AP-HP) network’s 3D-printing platform. The French med-tech firm, founded in 2018, specializes in 3D printing for custom-made medical needs and surgery simulators.

Multi-malterial pieces

Bone 3D’s simulators reproduce the various textures in the human body in order to offer an alternative to practicing surgery on corpses. To achieve that, the French start-up uses the American company Stratalys’s Polyjet technology, which enables them to make multi-material pieces. Their simulators are used to train future surgeons in medical schools, as well as by practicing surgeons who want to do a trial run before a complex operation, and by manufacturers of surgical implants.

Even before they began responding to the crisis, the start-up was already printing both medical and non-medical pieces that were indispensable to keeping hospitals running smoothly. “This activity boosts innovation. We started out with just five different pieces. Now our catalogue has over a hundred items”, the founder, Jérémy Adam, says.

The Paris-based company recently received an €800,000 subsidy from the Paris Region to contribute to its development. Encouraged by a €1.4 million seed round in late 2019, the Parisian start-up hopes to be present around the world by 2024.