2013 was a great year for the 3D printing industry.
It was the year a company by the name of Solid Concepts achieved a near Holy Grail-magnitude milestone by printing out a fully functioning semiautomatic pistol using a 3D printing process called laser metal sintering.
It was also the year the entire industry hit its stride in the eyes of retail stock investors, who finally adopted 3D printing as something far more significant and lasting than a technological fad.
In fact, the shareholders of all three of the companies I personally followed celebrated for the duration of 2013:
Stratasys Ltd. (NASDAQ: SSYS), 3D Systems Corp. (NYSE: DDD), and The ExOne Company (NASDAQ: XONE) — 2 industry leaders and one $650 upstart — all saw between 60% and 95% gains on the year.
More Than a Single Product
The main reason 3D printing is now getting such attention from the general public is that perception has changed. The public is finally accepting that this more than an industry… it is a force of innovative progress.
Let me expand on that thought a bit.
When you buy a stock, you’re indicating a sense of belief that the company is going to grow and expand its operations, hopefully doing things nobody else does — or at least does as well.
But 3D printing is far bigger than a single stock or even a single family of stocks, as those companies listed above represent.
3D printing is an industrial process no less significant (in terms of how it can drive progress via product development and manufacturing) than the 20th century’s widespread adoption of the internal combustion engine or the 19th century’s adoption of standardization.
Its versatility of application makes 3D printing not just a technology but a technological nexus, affecting a wide spectrum of other industries that will come to depend on the advantages 3D printing brings to the fabrication process.
Novelty Becomes Sophistication
Well, if 3D printing itself was like the internal combustion engine, then this latest advancement is like automatic transmission:
Meet The Technology Partnership’s (TTP) Vista 3D printer head.
The Vista is an organic and inorganic multi-material printhead capable of using plastics, metals, ceramics, enzymes, and biological cells.
If that last part sounds like science fiction to you, it’s because it’s pretty darn close.
TTP, a European technology development company, indicates that the printhead is already used commercially for 2D applications such as motherboard circuit printing.
However, over the next ten years, it will be applied to everything from toys, medical devices, and aircraft parts to diagnostic test strips at the touch of a button.
According to Dr. David Smith of TTP:
Our latest breakthrough will speed this process up and will change the face of manufacturing over the next ten years. The manufacturing process has remained the same for centuries with one company making products in a factory then shipping them out when orders are made. Multimaterial 3D printing will change this. No longer will organisations need to bulk buy or wait for items to be restocked, companies can simply print off the products they need, when they need them.
Note, however, that multi-material 3D printing isn’t entirely new.
The Objet Connex series and Objet1000 PolyJet 3D printers are currently capable of using up to 14 different materials in a single build.
However, those materials are limited to variations of inert rubber and plastic-like substances.
According to TTP, Vista implements “a breakthrough method in droplet ejection” to allow for the printing of “large (50 μm+) particles and more viscous and volatile fluids” with a single printhead.
If God Had a 3D Printer…
This allows manufacturers to combine both organic and inorganic materials in one print — a function that has the potential to lead to some truly paradigm-shifting innovation in manufacturing.
Ultimately, organic multi-material 3D printing technology like the kind pioneered by the Vista could give medical facilities the power to print out fully-functioning, DNA-compatible human organs.
This latest advancement, which sounds most sci-fi of all, is actually not so far off.
San Diego-based Organovo Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: ONVO) develops three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting technology for creating functional human tissues on demand for research and medical applications.
In a 2013 interview, Mike Renard, Organovo’s executive vice president of commercial operations, said: “We have achieved thicknesses of greater than 500 microns, and have maintained liver tissue in a fully functional state with native phenotypic behavior for at least 40 days.”
Native phenotypic behavior, to those without a medical degree, is active, ongoing functionality normally associated with natural livers.
Organovo expects to complete its first complete prototype in 2014.
Now, while you cannot buy shares of The Technology Partnership, Organovo shares are publicly available under the symbol “ONVO.”
But on the grander scheme, don’t spend all your time looking at individual companies.
Take a moment to really look around and see how this industrial process is already touching and influencing so much in the realm of consumer products.
Decades from now, these will be remembered as the first moments of a golden era for 3D and bioprinting.
Don’t miss out on it while it’s happening.
To Your Wealth,
Brian Hicks
Check us out on YouTube!Brian is a founding member and President of Angel Publishing. He writes about general investment strategies for Wealth Daily and Energy & Capital. For more on Brian, take a look at his editor’s page.
