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Renishaw, Irish Manufacturing Research (IMR) and nTopology host webinar on additive manufacturing for spinal implants

September 2019

To strengthen the use of additive manufacturing (AM) for medical devices, global engineering technology company, Renishaw, is running a webinar alongside manufacturing research organisation, IMR, and software company, nTopology. On September 10th at 11:00 EST / 16:00 GMT / 17:00 CET, the three companies will discuss a recent joint project that combined Renishaw's expertise in AM, IMR's knowledge of medical device development and nTopology's advanced design software to produce a new type of conceptual spinal implant. To sign up for the webinar, click here.

During the project, IMR designed a range of implants using software from nTopology, and produced them on a RenAM 500 series system. As part of the webinar, Mark Hartnett , Research Engineer at IMR will explain how AM can be used to manufacture spinal implants with lattice structures. Christopher Cho, Senior Application Egineer, from nTopology will also shed light on how software can enable the rapid creation of complex, performance driven designs for AM. nTopology's platform allows users to create custom workflows to meet the exact requirements of a project.

Chris Dimery, Sales Manager at Renishaw's Medical and Dental Products Division, will discuss Renishaw's high-productivity, four-laser RenAM 500Q metal additive manufacturing system and how the technology can be applied to medical devices, specifically orthopaedic implants. During the spinal implant project, both the prototypes and the final demonstration devices were produced on a RenAM 500 series system.

“Spinal implants are used to restore intervertebral height in patients with conditions including degenerative disc disease, herniated disc, spinal stenosis and osteoporosis,” explained Dimery. “Lattices offer a high surface area to volume ratio, a characteristic that is highly desirable to spinal implant manufacturers and something that AM is uniquely placed to deliver.”

“The webinar will pass on the AM knowledge and understanding which the three companies have gained through working on this project,” added Dimery.“We will share information on how to make the process smooth and efficient.”

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