Despite the advances in creating bio-artificial and 3D-printed organs and a few cases of their successful application that I talked about in my previous blog, it is my conclusion that Bioprinting today is primarily at its research and development stage. Indeed, organs need to be designed using the CAD software, then built with bioprinters, then a trial procedure needs to take place that may or may not be a success. If the initial operation is successful, the patient needs to be observed over a quite substantial period of time (say 5-10 years) until it will be proven that such operations can act as alternatives to traditional methods.

According to the article 3D Bioprinting Market 2014-2030, the bioprinting market will progress gradually over the coming decade and the focus is likely to shift from research to commercialization by the second half of next decade. At this stage, applications such as drug testing and tissue engineering will likely be popular. Researchers predict, that by 2030 3D bioprinting will be a multi-billion dollar industry; early success of bioprinted organ transplants is likely to provide additional boost in subsequent years.

There is quite a number of start-ups both in the United States and in Europe, that are developing products based on bioprinting. For example, a Dutch start-up led by scientist Ingmar van Hengel, along with his team, is developing a technology they call SkinPrint. SkinPrint will use a 3D bioprinter in combination with the latest stem cell technology to develop personalized skin that could change the face of medicine as we know it. Here you can watch the SkinPrint’s presentation at the Philips innovation award:

Another examples of 3D bioprinting specialized start-ups are TeVido BioDevices – an “early-stage life sciences/biotech company using 3D bio-printing of a woman’s own living cells – to build custom grafts for breast cancer reconstruction (http://tevidobiodevices.com) and Aspect Biosystems that focuses on printing tissue models for toxicity testing (http://aspectbiosystems.com).