Kumovis founders launch new PEEK implant company Munich Medical Devices
The founders of Kumovis, a German medtech company that developed PEEK 3D printing technology for implants, have launched their latest venture, Munich Medical Devices GmbH (MMD). The new company, officially founded at the beginning of the year and just out of stealth mode, will leverage the team’s decade of experience in medical-grade PEEK 3D printing to now produce implants themselves. As MDD says: “Our vision is a new generation of implants, designed digitally, tailored to the patient’s needs, and manufactured with an end-to-end workflow to give surgeons new options where standard solutions fall short.”
Founded in 2017 as a spin-out from the Technical University of Munich, Kumovis came into the medical AM segment with a big impact. The startup developed a medical 3D printing platform engineered specifically for the production of implants made from high-performance thermoplastics like PEEK, a material used broadly across medical applications.
Within a year of its launch, Kumovis’ innovative technology led it to win Formnext’s 2018 Start-Up Challenge. Its technology, based on a fused layer manufacturing process, was then commercialized in 2019 with the launch of Kumovis R1, a 3D printer with integrated clean-room technology and a patented temperature management system that enabled the production of strong, dense devices.
Seeing the promise of this technology, industry giant 3D Systems acquired Kumovis in 2022, bringing the 3D printing solution under its own brand as the EXT 220 MED. As Dr. Jeffrey Graves, 3D Systems’ President and CEO at the time, said, “The addition of the Kumovis team—their expertise and technology—will be highly synergistic to our medical business model. Our proven ability to deliver regulatory-approved, implantable 3D printed medical devices, personalized to improve patient outcomes, to surgeons around the world through our exceptional channel partners, will help ensure that the Kumovis PEEK-based offerings can be brought to market quickly and effectively.”
Since the acquisition, the original Kumovis team continued to work within 3D Systems to advance PEEK 3D printing for implants and medical devices. In 2024, for instance, 3D Systems’ VSP PEEK Cranial Implant, manufactured on the EXT 220 MED, became the first 3D printed cranial implant made from PEEK to be FDA approved.
Now, members of the original Kumovis team—Sebastian Pammer, Stefan Leonhardt, Arnaud Bruyas, and Yannick Krieger—have set off on a new venture with Munich Medical Devices. As Leonhardt said of the new company: “We spent a decade making PEEK printing possible. MMD is where that technology finally becomes the implant.”
While not many details have yet been disclosed about the specific products Munich Medical Devices will manufacture, the company suggests that it will start with cranial implants. These implants, fully designed and manufactured in Munich, will be available as patient-specific devices as well as in series. On LinkedIn, the new company has given us a small glimpse of its offering, stating that the implants, made from a bioactive PEEK and with optimized porous structures, will be produced on “one manufacturing platform and an AI-driven software workflow.” More details about the company, including products and partners, are expected to be revealed shortly.
