Earlier this month, a surprising announcement took place. Dentsply Sirona, the world's largest manufacturer of dental products and technologies, including of course, the CEREC system, has announced it has entered into a partnership with 3Shape, the developer and manufacturer of the 3Shape lab and intraoral scanners.
The first step of this partnership focuses on a facilitated collaboration between 3Shape's intraoral scanner, the TRIOS, and Dentsply Sirona's SureSmile Clear Aligners.
Does "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" come to mind to anyone?
These two companies have traditionally been at each other's throats.
Still, with Align closing off Invisalign to every new scanner on the market except iTero, including the CEREC Primescan and TRIOS4, it seems that these two companies are now willing to work together to provide a clear aligner solution.
Dentsply Sirona and 3Shape have agreed to work on multiple strategic opportunities in order to improve digital dentistry. In the immediate term, the partnership will focus on a collaboration for better access of TRIOS users to SureSmile Clear Aligners.
Opening the platforms to the 3Shape system allows dental professionals to benefit from greater choices, more flexibility, and smoother workflows in the future.
“The collaboration with 3Shape supports our goal of tailoring our product solutions to the needs of our customers. We want to give dental professionals real added value with digital technologies that can be easily integrated and are an intelligent advancement in their routine workflows,” says Don Casey, Chief Executive Officer of Dentsply Sirona. “Open systems allow the integration of new functions into existing practice and laboratory structures. We are convinced that we have an excellent partner for this with 3Shape and look forward to additional partnership opportunities in the future.”
For 3Shape, the new partnership means an additional service to TRIOS users: “3Shape’s goals and solutions are based on an open ecosystem philosophy and on working together with other companies to provide better and more cost-effective solutions that will benefit clinicians and their patients”, says Jakob Just-Bomholt, Chief Executive Officer of 3Shape. “We’re very excited that TRIOS users can now take advantage of the leading SureSmile Aligners treatment through a smoother workflow.”
The connection from 3Shape’s TRIOS scanner to SureSmile will be improved and streamlined to allow 3Shape customers smoother access to the fast-growing clear aligner system SureSmile.
The cloud-based SureSmile Aligner software offers various options for treatment planning and implementation.
More information about SureSmile Clear Aligners is available on the Dentsply Sirona Website: www.dentsplysirona.com/suresmile.
Who knows what this partnership could lead to? Interesting times ahead.