Summary
Bioprinting is an additive manufacturing process similar to 3D Printing – it uses a digital file as a blueprint to print an object layer by layer. But unlike 3D printing, bioprinters print with cells and biomaterials, creating organ-like structures. The cells of interest (which can be patient derived or from a universal cell line) are then prepared with a bio ink, a type of natural or synthetic polymer selected for its ability to facilitate adhesion, proliferation and differentiation during maturation. Next, cell-laden bio ink is loaded into a cartridge and one or more printheads are selected depending on the required structure. Finally, researchers crosslink the structures, a process of treating the construct with either ionic solution or UV light. Then the cell-filled constructs are cultivated inside an incubator. Bioprinting is an enabling technology which unlocks more complex Organoids, one specific application.
Viability (5)
Nascent but growing market with commercial printers in market. The technology moved into the commercialisation phase with a 2004 breakthrough in scaffold-free bioprinting. Subsequent progress the use of patient-specific pluripotent stem cells for printing opened up the market for tissue and organ replacement (see Organoids). Two main lines of development: autologous, patient specific bio-printing and allogeneic universal products. The market was worth $1.7bn in 2021 growing at 15% a year. The demand for organ transplants will drive much of this growth with dental and biosensors following. As the demand for tissue engineered products grows as will demand for bioprinting, those markets are not yet at inflection points. A challenging diffusion environment makes it difficult for a catalyst to force break out growth.
Drivers (4)
Major supply-side drivers include the continued improvement in inkjet-based printing and bioinks. More importantly thought is the development of magnetic 3D bioprinting which is faster and more precise than alternative extrusion, photolithography, and stereolithography techniques. These improvements open up new applications in toxicity screening, vascular muscle printing, and cell regeneration. Demand for bioprinting is coming predominately from tissue and organ generation in particular for skin tissue, cardiac tissue and cartilage tissue As noted in Xenotransplantation demand far exceeds the supply with 100,000 organs needed in the US alone. Beyond transplants, the demand for biosensors and dental care is growing rapidly. Future demand also present from the cultured meat industry as the challenges faced in printing organs is very similar to that in growing structured meat products.
Novelty (5)
Bioprinting allows for the production of tissue and organs which are valuable for a variety of applications. One of the most important is enabling Organoids and the associated novelty as an information dense and highly scalable model system for human biology. Organoids are useful as a research tool, however bioprinted organs are directly valuable for tissue and organ replacement and regeneration (e.g. as a tissue engineered product). Compared to other transplantation methods including autografting, allografting and Xenotransplantation, bioprinting with patient derived materials causes less immunological stress on the patient and doesn’t require local demand as with allografts.
Diffusion (3)
As a medical technology, bioprinting has the familiar regulatory barriers required before adoption. As such, compared to 3D Printing, diffusion will take much longer. Bioprinting is somewhere like 10 years behind 3D printing in terms of printer performance and materials, and has the additional challenges of working with biological material. Magnetic 3D bioprinting is increasing the speed and precision of bioprinting, material cost declines could see the market grow faster than predicted. Still the challenge of quality control and reproducibility will continue to hold back the market. The field has yet is to find a breakout product that will unlock demand for this class of life-sciences tools (as bioprinting is essential the wetware and hardware that enables use to research and then scale tissue engineered products).
Impact (4)
Bioprinting is an inevitable technology. Without doubt, a tool allowing us to print biological material will be fundamental to human healthcare for the next few decades. Non-patient specific organs will be part of the drug development and clinical trial processes, and patient-specific tissues and organs will be important in personalised and regenerative medicine. The implications of a cheaper, more effective, and safer medical process would save millions of lives and unlock likely in the order of trillions of dollars of value. In the longer-term in vivo gene editing and tropism engineered gene therapies will render the need to print biological material useless if disease can be “fixed” directly or prevented at a cellular level in vivo.
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