It used to be so much simpler when a denture was a denture and a crown was a crown. Our laboratory forms were blank sheets of paper with even room to draw a picture. However in the last few years branding has hit dentistry and will continue to drive our industry.

It really began with the development and protection of new materials, that the larger companies could put marketing budgets behind without loosing out to generic copy materials. Anyone could make a Porcelain bonded to metal crown. Call it a name all you want; eventually it will come down to the quality of the lab and price.  Then Procera crowns came along, up until that point there had been no big brands. Procera broke the rules, as it was not just a crown, it was a material and a way of manufacturing. In the beginning it could not be replicated by the generics and few to this day remember an Aluminium Oxide crown, everyone knows it as Procera.  Just when we all thought that Nobel Biocare had conquered the crown and bridge market, along came 3M with their powerhouse of branding and marketing.

3M introduced a new material, Lava Zirconia, and a system of manufacturing which was hard to replicate: The Lava system. They dominated the all-ceramic market for several years. Then finally the most successful of them all is Ivoclar Vivadent with IPS e.max.  Ivoclar had limited success with the Empress brand but now that the market was getting on board with branding they launched a material with no limitations to the average dental laboratory that didn’t need the capital investment of Lava or Procera. This new material, Lithium Disilicate, was easy to use but, more importantly for the Ivoclar marketing budgets it was patented and protected.

Ivoclar have pushed the boundaries on this protected material because zirconia has now become a generic material, so fewer companies spend their marketing budgets on it. Zirconia layering with porcelain is just as good, and in some cases better, but with e.max the lab does not need any more equipment like milling machines.

So now the can of worms is open and the dental manufacturers have realised the importance of branding. However, the new generation materials for the moment are variations of the original Zirconia and Lithium Disilicate, along with a few new hybrid materials.

However every one of these materials has a brand, even if it’s the same material, as everyone wants to protect their marketing spend and hold onto as much of the market as they can. What this means for the dental practice is complete confusion on what to place in the mouth. Even more concerning is that there is a lack of knowledge of what to stick them in with.  Perfectly good materials are falling out of the mouth because they have not been etched or cemented rather than bonded.What we see happening is that a lot of dentists are just reverting back to what they know because of the confusion. This is a real shame as many of these new generation materials bring massive advantages.

Last year DTS, our UK based dental laboratory, created a guide to restorations where we removed the confusion of where to use, what and why. This was so well received by our customers that again this year we will be updating it and will make it available to all.

Your laboratory should be your guide, as a lab, it is our role to make sure we are aware of all the new materials on the market and that we have educated teams to advise our customers.  DTS has a dedicated customer service team and some of the best-educated technicians in the country to help our dentists choose the perfect new generation restorations for the patient.

Like our motto DTS is “More than just a dental lab.” DTS is the resourse of the dental Team.