Techno Sweden

During recent conversations with representatives of several companies in the surface modification and coatings sector for a story appearing in the May/June issue of Orthopedic Design & Technology, the CEOs of two Swedish companies offered interesting views onsucceeding in a technology-rich field.

Ulf Brogren, president and CEO of Promimic, a Göteborg, Sweden-headquartered firm that is developing a hydroxyapatite (HA) nano surface that has been shown to accelerate osseointegration of implants, told MedicalDeviceNowthat a big part of being able to develop an interesting biomaterial with interesting commercial possibilities had to do with location. “We have been blessed with starting off in Sweden and particularly in Göteborg,” said Ulf Brogren. “Göteborg is kind of the birth city of dental implants. We have both Nobel Biocare and AstraTech here – they started out in Göteborg — and the interaction between these companies and the academic world in Göteborg created very strong research groups for biomaterials.”

So, he added, “we have been able to work with some of the best biomaterials researchers in Sweden or in all of Europe when it comes to dental implants. And of course the integration of the dental implant into the jawbone is very similar to the integration of an orthopedic screw or an orthopedic device elsewhere into the body, so there are a lot of good models for us to work with.”

Brogren said, “There also is a great tradition in innovation and in schooling engineers with an innovation mindset. We have created companies that have become world leaders in their niche, so that has led to a lot of spin-off companies.”

Magnus René, president and CEO of Arcam, a company based in the nearby city of Mölndal that is focused on an additive manufacturing technology, Electron Beam Melting, for production of complex, dense metal parts, described Sweden as“a country with a lot of engineers,” a key to doing well in technology fields.
 
Coming from a small country means Swedish firms have to think more broadly when it comes to potential markets, René said.

“We’re only 9 million people,” he added, “so there’s no home market. Most companies in the technology sector basically have no home market at all; you could never survive being a local company in high- or mid-tech. But here, we have to expose ourselves to the international community; we have no choice. We don’t divide the market into international and national; it’s all the same market to us.”

Jim Stommen, retired editor of industry publication Medical Device Daily, is a freelance writer focusing on the medical product sector.