uLab Systems, which has developed a software platform designed to enable chairside aligner treatment planning, has completed a $6 million Series C financing round led by Light Bridge Ventures. The platform also has received 510K clearance from the United States Food and Drug Administration.
“uLab Systems software is quite impressive and allows dental practitioner to create an aligner plan in as little as 10 minutes,” said John Sun of Light Bridge Ventures. “We believe uLab Systems is the missing piece that will bring aligner treatment and printing in-house for many orthodontists.”
The software seamlessly imports patient 3-D digital scans and enables dental professionals to diagnose orthodontic treatment needs and develop a treatment plan chairside in less than five minutes, uLab says. It also exports standard STL files for printing dental models to create aligner trays and retainers in the dental professional’s office.
“With uLab, it will now be possible for professionals to complete a treatment plan in less than five minutes. What’s more, patients will be able to begin treatment on the same day as their initial consultation. uLab empowers dental professionals to create a more positive patient experience,” said Charlie Wen, uLab cofounder and president.
“uLab decreases the burden of aligner treatment planning by allowing orthodontists to design treatment plans in just minutes. At the same time, uLab expands the range of cases that can be treated with aligners by allowing orthodontists to precisely control how many aligners they require, along with making integrated hybrid aligner-braces treatment simple,” said Tim Dumore, DMD, lead investigator on uLab’s field clinical study on the software’s performance.
uLab Systems is in the final stages of its pilot launch with plans for a full commercial release of its software at the American Association of Orthodontists’ annual meeting in May this year. In about six months, the company says, movement plans for more than 6,000 aligner cases have been completed using the software.
“I have been extremely happy with both the simplicity of the system and the complexity of the cases I can treat. With uLab, I can now create the treatment plan and print aligners right in my office on the very same day. This allows me to start treatment faster and makes aligner creation in my office possible,” said software user Eric Wu, DMD, of Palo Alto, California.
“We remain very encouraged with the evolution of the clear aligner market and have even greater conviction that an intuitive and easy to use chairside treatment planning software platform will be the key piece to enabling in-office aligner fabrication and same-day starts while also putting control back in the hands of the orthodontist,” said Mark Foley, chairman of the board at uLab.
“Lastly, with this financing, we look forward to completing the development of our uContour system, which enables the trimming of at least 12 aligners at one time,” Foley said.
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