There is a lot to be invented in dental hand instruments, says Head of Product and R&D Petri Aronkytö. The company’s latest innovation aims for higher quality gum surgery. Significant market potential is seen especially in South America.
LM-Dental’s products are made in Finland, which comes as a surprise even to many dentists. The company’s R&D, product manufacturing and quality assurance are all under the same roof in the archipelago town Parainen in Southwest Finland.
– If there is a problem in our product manufacturing, which needs help from our R&D team, the process is fast. The same applies to the development of new products, says Petri Aronkytö, Head of Product and R&D at LM-Dental.
LM-Dental’s main products include dental hand instruments, their tracking system, orthodontic instruments and ultrasonic equipment. Cooperation with local universities and dental professionals is vital in the company’s product development.
– We develop our clinical products together with Finnish and foreign dentists, Aronkytö says.
LM-Dental’s products are sold to over 90 countries through distributors in the industry. Over half of the company’s 18-million-euro revenue comes from dental hand instruments.
New Business from Gum Surgery
LM-Dental does not compete with the cheapest price in the market but with quality, efficiency and user comfort. New clinical areas are constantly being explored in hand instruments.
One of the company’s new openings in spring 2025 is the hand instrument set and treatment concept for gum surgery. The idea is that the surgical treatment of gum disease would be minimally invasive. It means that the tissue damage from the surgery would be minimal, and recovery would be fast.
In Finnish dental care, tartar removal helps to prevent gum disease from progressing to severe stages. Thus, gum surgery is rarely required. The situation is different globally.
– South America is going to be a major market area for this product category. Their dental care is reactive, thus surgical treatment is required much more often, Aronkytö says.
The instrument set and treatment concept has been developed with 12 dental professionals from around the world, with Argentinian professor, Dr. Axel Endruhn as the chief designer. According to Aronkytö, industry distributors’ recommendations help to identify the right experts for R&D projects.
Bold and Curious Product Development
Aronkytö encourages his R&D team to stay boldly curious and to brainstorm freely. The diamonds from the long list of ideas proceed to the product development phase, which is guided by strict pharmaceutical regulations.
The team of more than ten professionals includes engineers from various disciplines, scientists, an industrial designer, and a dentist. The job is learned by doing.
– This field is unique in Finland and the employees’ learning curve is long. For instance, it will take perhaps a year for a new engineer to be efficient, Aronkytö says.
LM-Dental also has a small software development team, which focuses on LM Dental Tracking System. It is a cloud-based tracking system, which can be used to track the demand for dental products and to monitor the usage of dental instruments.
– The main market for the tracking system is the USA. There are big dental university clinics there that understand the importance of efficiency, Aronkytö says.
The software development team focuses on improving the tracking system. The software updates include improvements that customers have requested.
Efficient R&D Funding
LM-Dental’s R&D work is mainly self-funded. Aronkytö wishes that the R&D funding instruments would evolve in a way that the use of public funds would be as efficient as possible.
LM-Dental used the Business Turku’s RDI-Voucher last spring in ordering materials testing services from Åbo Akademi University.
Aronkytö thinks that today’s main challenge is the global downturn in the healthcare technology market following the Covid pandemic. He believes that the situation is temporary, and he is optimistic about the future. The need for dental care will remain.
– Population ageing is increasing the use of healthcare services. The healthcare backlog will need to be addressed at some point, he says.
Text and photos: Heidi Pelander
This article is part of the TKI-kompassi project, funded by the Regional Council of Southwest Finland.
