Looking back over the last decade, it is clear from the vantage point of 2017 that additive manufacturing (AM) has caused significant disruption in the medical sector. Indeed, in no other sector has AM had such a profound and dramatic effect on the human condition in terms of improving lives — whether directly at the point of need within clinical environments or communities or indirectly as a manufacturing method for greatly improved medical devices. Currently, despite the direct approach dominating many ‘3D Printing’ headlines as surgeons and clinicians increasingly embrace the AM systems at the point of need for patient-specific applications, it is the latter, indirect approach, that has seen significant results for higher volume, serial production with AM by medical device manufacturers.

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