Merck is a global life sciences company that develops products such as medicines and vaccines and conducts other biopharmaceutical research. Its research has included 3D bioprinting in the past, but it also has an interest in 3D printing on a more general level, and this week the company announced that it has selected the 3D printing technology of Massachusetts-based company Rize to provide a wide range of functional applications for Merck’s stakeholders.
Merck has been using 3D printing heavily in its centralized additive manufacturing facility to design, develop and sell new products. It also has a 3D Tech Service that collaborates with internal clients to design and 3D print their parts.
“3D printing enables innovation,” said Tinh Nguyen-Demary, Merck’s Senior Lead Engineer of Additive Manufacturing. “It enables us to do what we couldn’t do otherwise.”
The 3D Tech Service team was looking for a more flexible 3D printing solution that uses a safe material and process and offers a combination of material properties suitable for a wide range of pre-clinical applications that their existing technology could not accomplish. They also wanted something faster than they currently were using. They looked into the Rize One 3D printer and liked what they saw: high chemical resistance, low moisture absorption, low surface energy and isotropic part strength that mimics injection molding.
“Our internal lab tests, ranks and recommends approximately 15 3D printing materials for internal stakeholders,” said Nguyen-Demary. “RIZE’s RIZIUM ONE material is near the top of the list.”
The Rize One is also an extremely convenient, easy-to-use 3D printer that requires virtually no post-processing, material management or venting. Nguyen-Demary wants to place a networked Rize One in several locations outside of the additive manufacturing lab so that they can print anywhere.
“We like to use RIZE ONE as often as we can because it’s easy and reliable, without any complexity or tech support,” said Nguyen-Demary. “RIZE’s ease of use is a big plus compared to other 3D printers. It’s super easy to place and print a part with one click. There’s no need to export, file fix and import. The convenience factor of RIZE’s zero-post-processing capability also makes it faster to get to the final part. We print the part and we can test it immediately after printing in case we need to make modifications. As a result, we use RIZE ONE very frequently – every day.”
Rize also offers a voxel-level printing process that enables the printing of part numbers directly onto parts. The 3D printer is also capable of embedding a marker, such as a QR code, into parts through its Digitally Augmented Part capability.
“Our RIZE 3D printing platform, with its clean process, clean materials and completely safe user experience, makes it very suitable for the life sciences industry,” said Andy Kalambi, President and CEO of Rize. “As a result, we are delighted to see the variety of functional use cases in pre-clinical applications developed by Merck. Tinh and his team continue to push the envelope and discover new ways to put the technology to use, cut costs and improve products in ways never seen before in the 3D printing industry.”
“We have a great working relationship with RIZE,” said Nguyen-Demary. “Their technical team is knowledgeable, responsive and integrates our feedback in a timely manner.”
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[Images: Rize]