Eden Prarie Company To Produce Breast Implants Using 3-D Printers

EDEN PRARIE, MN — Eden Prarie-based Stratasys announced plans to enter the $2.6 billion global breast implant market using its 3-D printer technologies.

Stratasys will team up with Israel-based CollPlant Biotechnologies for the project

CollPlant is a healthcare company that builds products using its plant-based collagen for tissue regeneration and organ manufacturing.

Together, the two companies will use Stratasys’ bioprinter and CollPlant’s bioinks to produce the new line of breast implants. Bioinks are materials that can be used to grow human tissue.

"Through this partnership with CollPlant, we have an important opportunity to transform healthcare with bioprinting to improve the lives of patients undergoing breast augmentation or reconstruction procedures," said Stratasys CEO Dr. Yoav Zeif in a news release.

Yehiel Tal, the CEO of CollPlant, added that "We believe that our rhCollagen-based regenerative implant has the potential to overcome the challenges of existing breast procedures that use silicone implants or autologous fat tissue transfer."

Breast reconstruction and augmentation procedures are the second most common plastic surgery procedures in the world, according to Stratasys. But the company said the most common breast augmentation or reconstruction procedures using synthetic silicone breast implantations, "an artificial substitution for natural regenerated tissue with risks of complications."