In 2021, Meticuly Company Limited have been supporting and participating in the Transforming System Through Partnership program by Royal Academy of Engineering to develop custom-made fixation plates using additive manufacturing of novel titanium alloys. This project is made possible by combining the strength of Thai partners in design and development of orthopedics’ device with the strength of UK partners in development of novel titanium alloys for medical application.
Meticuly Co., Ltd., a spin-off company was founded in 2017 whose core technology is on designing and manufacturing customized titanium orthopaedic implants using 3D printing technology. Meticuly Co., Ltd., will provide and manufacture all the bone plates specimens with their team of experts in both designing and metallurgy aspects.
Alloyed Co., Ltd., incorporated in the UK deriving from the merger of OxMet Technologies and Betatype in late 2019. OxMet Technologies was a spin-off company from University of Oxford and founded in 2017. Their in-depth knowledge in metallurgy brings into existence various distinctive alloys. The Alloyed uses a proprietary computational platform and advanced materials modelling to search for the right alloy composition for any application including the medical device industry. The Meticuly will manufacture bone plates based on their know-how and proficiency using newly developed super elastic titanium alloys that was developed by the Alloyed. With this collaboration, the bespoke 3D-printed implant aims to help patients suffering from bone fracture and bone tumors. The digital material design and additive manufacturing technique is used to develop this novel alloys.
Over and above the companies’ expertise, this project has brought together many academic partners from the UK and Thailand consisting of the Department of Materials, University of Oxford, NISCO UK Research Centre, School of Engineering, University of Leicester and Chulalongkorn University. The efficiency evaluation is done using biomechanical testing under dynamic loading of the 3D-printed plates with novel titanium alloys as compared to that of medical-grade Ti-6Al-4V alloy. In-depth material characterisation as well as computational materials approach will also be taken to gain better insights into underlying failure mechanisms of the two alloys. The activities related to 3D printing and biomechanical testing will be conducted both in Thailand and in the UK to ensure strong collaboration between all partners. The success of this project will potentially allow the use of 3D-printed implants as a possible alternative to the usual method of osteosynthesis plates for the treatment of bone fracture/resection.
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