Additive Manufacturing Market Predicted to Keep Growing

Additive manufacturing (AM) is the name of the game in the medical device industry lately, with companies expanding their 3-D capabilities and improving their imaging technologies to create more precise and seamless components. A new Markets and Markets report brings good news, suggesting the global AM market will be worth $3.5 billion by 2017. Compound annual growth is expected to be 13.5 percent annually from 2012 to 2017.

Other names for AM are additive fabrication, additive processes, additive techniques, additive layer manufacturing, layer manufacturing, and freeform fabrication. The global market for medical device AM is fragmented into different categories based on materials, products, application, and technology. The materials segment comprises homogeneous and heterogeneous, whereas the product category includes surgical equipment, prosthetics and implants, and tissue engineering. The global market for medical device AM, by technology, comprises electron beam melting, laser beam melting, photopolymerization, droplet deposition or extrusion-based technologies, and 3-D printing or adhesion bonding, while the application segment includes orthopedic, dental, cranio-maxillofacial, and bioengineering.

Markets and Markets claims a large number of technological innovations in additive manufacturing procedures have been occurred in recent years: “Newer technologies are coming up with rapid and accurate development of products in a cost-effective manner, contributing to widespread adoption of the additive manufacturing procedures by manufactures worldwide,” the report states.

New and improved technologies, financial support from governments, large application area, rapid product development at a low cost, and ease of development of custom products are the major drivers slated to propel this market. However, a few pivotal factors restraining the growth of this market include regulatory hurdles in some countries, material characterization during development, and process control and understanding.

Markets and Markets is a Dallas, Texas-based business intelligence and consulting company.