Nobel Biocare has signed an agreement to purchase 100% of BioCad Medical, a developer of computer-aided design (CAD) software for prosthetics, for 26 million euros ($32 million U.S.), the company announced. The purchase includes all rights to BioCad's trademark, brand names, strong R&D network, and a facility in Quebec City, Canada. Nobel Biocare said it will retain all 40 BioCad employees.
Nobel Biocare also announced the signing of an exclusive partnership with Optimet, Optical Metrology, a subsidiary of the Ophir Group in Israel, to offer a new generation of optical scanners with impression scanning capabilities using Optimet's patented conoscopic holography technology. The scanner will be launched in early 2009, according to the company.
In addition, Nobel Biocare said it will introduce a broad range of new prosthetic materials and products next year.
Over the last 10 months, Nobel Biocare and BioCad have developed a solution to combine the BioCad CAD interface with Nobel Biocare's computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) capabilities. The new BioCad software takes the restoration process from a computer-assisted design process to a more computer-automated design process, the company said, reducing and automating much of the design work done by a lab to create the digital model for a restoration. The software will also be launched in early 2009.
"We started developing the new NobelProcera concept 10 months ago with the goal to reinforce our leading CAD/CAM position with Procera," said Domenico Scala, CEO of Nobel Biocare. "For the pioneer in dental CAD/CAM, the steps announced today mark an important milestone and allow us to bring to our customers the leading optical scanner and computer-aided software technology available today."
The global all-ceramic CAD/CAM prosthetic market is estimated to be worth approximately 650 million euros ($86 million) in 2008, according to Nobel Biocare, with a compound annual growth rate of 28%. The market is expected to grow to 2.2 billion euros ($2.8 billion) by 2012, the company stated.
