Episode #114| Interview With Brigitte de Vet-Veithen, CEO of Materialise

This is our second episode recorded at the Materialise conference.  Our guest for this episode is no other than the CEO of Materialise Brigitte de Vet-Veithen. It is a pleasure for me to be able to conduct this interview, because Materialise is such a legendary company that has spent 35 years building the software and services infrastructure behind patient-specific implants, surgical planning, and point-of-care manufacturing. We also got to know Brigitte as a person and the new leader of the company. Importantly, we covered the metrics that signal adoption, challenges to scale beyond the halo case, and her vision for the industry.  In my opinion, this is perhaps one of the most important conversations for the medical 3D printing industry in 2026.

Highlights of this episode:

• Brigitte's journey from MedTech leadership to being the CEO at Materialise
• Why reimbursement is the clearest signal of adoption for medical 3D printing
• Building health economics evidence for patient-specific devices when every case is unique
• Helping physicians shift mindset toward pre-operative planning and new workflows
• The move from “3D printing company” to solution partner for specific clinical needs
• Why robots and surgical guides coexist, especially in ambulatory surgery centers
• How AI compresses lead times and expands access for trauma patients
• Mass personalization roadmap across orthopedics, CMF, pediatrics, respiratory, and structural heart
• Global adoption differences and why imaging availability sets the pace
• Investment priorities across education, evidence generation, R&D, and M&A

Please listen to the disclaimer at the end of this podcast.

Show Notes: https://3dheals.com/episode-114-interview-with-brigitte-de-vet-veithen-ceo-of-materialise/

YouTube: https://youtu.be/9PgME2RAmog?si=t-0X_DkrBdRg4MHe

Transcript

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Why Materialize Matters In Medicine

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi there, welcome to episode 114. Our second episode recorded at the Materialize Conference. Our guest for the episode is no other than the CEO of Materialize Forgetta Divet. It is a pleasure for me to be able to conduct this interview because Materialize is such a legendary company that has spent 35 years building the software and services infrastructure behind patient-specific implants, surgical planning, and point of care manufacturing. We also got to know Forget it as a person and new leader for the company. Importantly, we covered the metrics that signal adoption, challenges to scale beyond the Halo case, and her vision for the industry. In my opinion, this is perhaps one of the most important conversations for the medical 3D printing industry in 2026. Enjoy. Please listen to the disclaimer at the end of this podcast. Hello, Rahida. Good to see you again. Good morning. Thank you for having me. I think this is the third time we see each other in person. Absolutely. And actually most of it this year. Within a year.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yeah, within a year, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

The first time I saw you was I was a moderator on the site, and you're the speaker. Indeed. And the second time you were an anonymous attendee, uh, kind of accidentally dropped into my JP Morgan conference this year. And one of the most engaging audience I had. I disclosed myself very quickly, I guess. And then the third time I'm sitting here in this beautiful studio that you set up for Materialize. So really a pleasure to see you. And I also want to say that you're very accessible as a CEO of a public company. So thank you very much for having this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Yeah. And I mean, this is a special event for us to have you here while we also have our point of care form here. 160 attendees, 200 people, including the speakers in total, to have you join us here for that event is a particularly pressure.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Yeah, yesterday I was in conference and the content was very educational to me. You know, at first I thought, okay, I probably know all the point of care applications possibly after 10 years in the space, but I still learned a ton and also seeing how the industry is moving in certain directions now. And we certainly can touch upon that soon. But before that, I'd like just to reintroduce you a little bit. Maybe you can tell us your story, your journey. Very interesting, prematerialized journey to where you are today. And then decades immaterialized, obviously. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How

Brigitte's Path From MedTech To CEO

SPEAKER_02 2:40

did I end up here?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

That's a very good question. So uh really before coming here, I'm gonna be honest, I knew nothing about additive. Um, I knew a lot about the healthcare space. So my journey really started in manufacturing uh in my very early days. Um, I dealt with a lot of manufacturing companies in a lot of different sectors, amongst which also healthcare uh companies. And mainly my mission was to help them uh improve operationally. Um and after having done that uh for a while, um, I joined Johnson ⁇ Johnson to really make the step forward into uh healthcare at large. Stayed 10 years with them, relatively classical, commercially oriented uh career. There are PL responsibilities of countries, regions, um, and climbing up the ladder. Um at some point I felt that it was time for a new chapter. Um, again, in the healthcare and particularly the mattech sector, I spent about 10 years helping companies that were either in trouble and had to go through turnarounds or had an aggressive growth plan and needed an extra pair of hands to do that. So as CEO of uh some companies smaller than Materialize, but that gave me my first experience. Um now after those 10 years, I was looking for a challenge where I could really had the feeling that I could leave a legacy and make a dent, um, leaving something meaningful behind.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

I met Fried, the founder of Materialize, um, and from the first conversation onwards, it was clear that Materialize was going to be the place where I could create a legacy and leave a dent. Um, and that's what I've done for the last 10 years. Yeah. And now you're the CEO of the company. Right. Yes. First eight years uh with Materialize, I focused on you know what I knew best, uh, the MedTech arena. So um, as uh you very well know, about half of our activities today are the are in healthcare. Um medical segment, 50% of our revenues. So I started 10 years ago uh building that um met tech pillar uh that we have. Um at that point in time, I would uh say additive wasn't that much adopted yet. We were still very early stage. People knew about additive, but we really had to go through kind of the phase where we enhanced the accelerated the adoption and really established that additive has value to add. Um so that was an important phase. Now obviously, we're in a very different phase, as you probably also have uh seen at the conference yesterday. The value of additive is very much accepted, and now it's all about scaling.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Yeah, um, you know, as you know, 3D heels exclusively focused on healthcare. So in addition to medtech, we also focused on biotech and a bunch of like 3D printed drugs and stuff like that. Um so it's it's really all over all

Measuring Adoption Through Reimbursement

SPEAKER_02 5:35

the verticals. Um, in terms of, you know, intuitively whether or not additive is now into our space. I can say, you know, my family members now are getting knee surgeries that is partly 3D printed. That I can feel intuitively, but from your end, you obviously know the data. Um, do you have some concrete metrics that you're monitoring to see the penetration of different verticals right now? Yeah, so that's a very good question.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

And admittedly, in the different verticals, the penetration is at a very different level. I think a metric that indicates to all of us very clearly that the adoption is there, or the clearest metric, I should say, that we can find is if we start seeing reimbursement for some of the additive applications. And actually, if we do look at some of the applications, there is reimbursement, not in all countries and regions yet, but we do have countries where reimbursement is accepted. Just to take an example, our patient-specific hip implant, um, in Belgium, uh, you know, the country that we are in today, there's structural reimbursement. And there has been structural reimbursement for the hip implant for a number of years. Why? Because we've been able to demonstrate that using the patient-specific materialized implant, reinterventions can be avoided. And with that, healthcare costs can be reduced. And that convinced the payers to actually structurally reimburse the patient-specific hip blood. And that's, I think, a very clear metric. Now, obviously, it's a long journey to get to that point. So there's other metrics that we focus on before that. Um, but when you look at the number of patients treated in a certain uh application and indication, that gives us an early indicator as to what progress we are making. Um and then comparing that to the total potential of patients, you know, obviously gives you uh an impression of the penetration achieved.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

Yeah, having attending many 3D printing for medicine conferences, and I think there is also evolution of the maturity of conversation in the space. Because the earlier conferences typically focus on amazing things we could do, applications. And now we start to talk about more practical aspects. Yes. Things like reimbursement has been echoing in my ear in the last couple of years now. Absolutely. Every time I have a conversation. Now, do you now, as leader of the company, kind of approach this problem differently now of a reverse engineer to say, you know, which one is more likely to be reimbursed first, then we'll go to that vertical?

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Yes, so that's a very good question. Um and I agree with you that the maturity around these conversations has very much changed. We're not talking about the halo cases only anymore. Yes, our solutions have a great value for the very complex cases, but it's not only those cases anymore. Um, it's primary surgeries that benefit from additive and 3D technology at large. So the conversation around this has certainly changed. Ten years ago, we were still at the Halo cases. Now that we are at a much larger adoption, selecting a new application always comes with the question on what is the willingness to pay? Are we going to be able to convince payers? Are we going to be able to make a health economics case? Um, hence also drive reimbursement or funding in any other way by the hospitals as an example because it saves costs in the hospitals. So that is a critical question that we always ask ourselves at the very start of a project or you know, approaching a new indication. Now, is that the only criteria? Absolutely not. Um there's many other criteria we also take into account, but that's a very important one. Now, while this is a very important um criteria, and while we also see, as I said, already structural reimbursement, we getting reimbursement and collecting the evidence for patient-specific um implants, instrumentation um, or other approaches is not that easy because per definition every patient is different. So your control group for trials that you want to set up is much harder to define. So that's the whole complexity where we have gained a lot of experience, but there's still a lot of education to be done in the in the in the market with all kinds of stakeholders to understand how to practically do this.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Yeah. Um you mentioned economics, um, you know, reimbursement certainly is one part of that. And recently, when I was talking to some pitch 3D startups, founders started to mention incentives behind physicians to deliver these patient-specific devices. Um, and not just about money, but obviously the outcome of the patient recovery, complication rates. Yeah. And it's almost a very intricate dance to figure out what part can this new device can fit into the workflow of existing practice. Um, how do you approach that problem in terms of the delivery of these new devices?

Getting Surgeons To Change Workflow

SPEAKER_00 10:46

So I think we need to keep in mind with the type of devices uh and when we talk about patient specific specific devices and approaches in particular, implementing these requires a change in approach, right? Requires a different mindset. It's too easy to think that yes, we have the technology and we figure out how to make a patient-specific implant and it'll go um and it'll be used because it makes so much sense. There's a whole mindset shift uh for physicians uh to make because suddenly they need to pre-operatively plan. Something that they might not have done before. So it changes their routine. Um they have a lot more information at hand. They also need to take that into account at different moments in the patient journey. Um, again, changes their routine. So a lot of our efforts are focused on, we call it, you know, almost educational efforts, uh, awareness creation, but also helping to shift that mindset. Um people will change their approach if it's worth it. But we need to demonstrate why it's worth it and then be very close to our physicians to help them go through that change, which I think as companies we're all used to going through changes and uh and and and adopting. Um, so we can apply that and use that to help our customers uh change.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Yeah. Speaking of change, I have to say both of us as a company, 3D Hills and Materialize, have evolved over time. Yes. Because, you know, we started off only focusing on 3D printing because that's what I knew. And still to this day believe it can change the world. But we have now adding in the 3D technologies uh component to it, which means there's a huge amount of digital world that we haven't covered that can really evolve the industry. And similarly, yesterday I was joking that materialize probably borrowed from us that you also now becoming more digital in terms of the focus of the pre-surgical planning part.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not

Moving Beyond Printing Into Planning

SPEAKER_00 12:45

a new thing. Um and I would want to mention two shifts that we're making. Um, one is indeed it's not only about implants and instrumentation. It's also, I keep mentioning 3D approaches. Um, pre-surgical planning is a really important element of that. We don't always have to go through a printing step. Right. Um, just using personalized planning pre-operatively and intra-operatively can make a huge difference as well. So that is certainly one shift that we are going through. The second shift that you know we've gone through at Materialized for the last 10 years in the medical arena, and now also as a you know broader materialized company, we're not talk we're not a 3D printing company anymore. Our customers don't see us as a 3D printing or 3D technology company as anymore. They see us as a person bringing or a c a partner to bring uh hip solutions, shoulder solutions, cranium maxillofacial solutions, structural heart solutions, but they don't care whether you know we 3D print.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Um the technology doesn't really matter for them. Um they need the right solution for their patient. So we are a medical company. We are an iris-based company in our industrial areas. So we're not a 3D printing company. And I say that jokingly because of course we use 3D printing in you know a lot of things that we do, and of course we use 3D modeling in everything that we do, but we're not a classical 3D printing company. So that's the second shift that we're going through.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Now on the 3D technologies, I would argue that we'll see a third shift that we're going through, um, where today we're looking primarily at anatomical landmarks to pre-surgically plan. We're looking at the data or the medical image of the patient. And what we're moving to is something that is a lot more predictive and even more personalized. In five or ten years' time, I would hope that as a community, as a company, we are able to take into account not only the CT images of the patient, but maybe why not the data that comes from my Apple Watch? Why not the data that comes from my whoop device to understand what my lifestyle is, what my needs are, hence define the best approach to who I am as a patient. So go even one step further in the planning, become predictive and even more personalized.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Absolutely. I mean, I have always also kind of joked, but not really a joke, is you do not want your surgeon to open you up and say, oops. Right. What do I find there interestingly? This is not good. If it's interesting, that's not good. You want to know ahead of the time and predict what's going to happen intraoperatively. At least I as a patient would want to know. Absolutely. Yeah. I also want to mention that you're the first person I know who wear both wearables of Whoop and Apple Watch. I would be crazy. I agree. Yeah. So, you know, the last year we we organized a webinar focusing on 3D printing in or 3D technologies in orthopedics. And I was doing extensive research at the time and realized how well penetrated 3D printing itself is already in all the major device makers. But the simultaneously I also realized people are no longer printing the surgical guys as much as they used to. Yes. Because they now have this million-dollar robot attached to every single system. And so I was having a slight existential crisis, I would say. Don't worry, Jenny. Yeah, there'll be a role. It seems like materializers are taking care of that. So you you guys are actually working with all these device makers as well. As well, as well as Vinci, um, you know, the intuitive surgical company that I saw yesterday, I was very pleased to see that because I know that people are no longer, you know, keeping the status quo and willing to move forward to the next generation of medical care. Do you want to expand on that a

Why Surgical Guides Still Matter With Robots

SPEAKER_02 16:44

little bit?

SPEAKER_00 16:44

So everybody thought when the robots came on board that guides would the surgical guides would disappear.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

The reality today is that that hasn't happened. Okay. Um and why is that? Um, I think there's there's there's two reasons why that is. Um the first one is not everybody can afford a a million dollar robot. Um, even a half million dollar robot, not everybody will be able to afford that.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

And guides are more practical, more affordable, an accessible solution for that. So that's one. The second is um what we see for take the US as an example. What we see in the US that the healthcare system is shifting towards more ambulatory care. So the whole um certainly in orthopedics, the percentage of patients that is treated in the ASCs, uh, so the ambulatory care centers is a lot larger these days. Um now uh ASCs, again, uh they're focused on uh many different aspects, but not only making the surgery as such um more efficient, but also making the whole chain more efficient. Now, if you pre-operatively plan because you want to use a guide, you optimize your inventory in the ASCs.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

That saves a lot of working uh capital as an example. It makes the chain faster, and again, you don't have to invest in a in a robot. So I fundamentally believe that the robots will coexist with other technologies, such as the guides with AR, which will increasingly spay play a role in the in the market as well. So there will be different needs and different segments in the market that will well need some of these solutions. It's not one or the other.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Um there's a there's a place for you know all of the technologies.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

A variety of combination offerings. Yes. Absolutely. I mean, it's good to have a surgical guide than not to have a surgical guide, is my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Yeah, absolutely. And it really depends on the indication as well. Some of the orthopedic applications are gonna be much harder to treat with robots just because of the variety of um uh anatomies of disease states um that you can encounter. Um, so the robot is not going to fit all cases either. Um so again, you know, technologies will coexist.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Well, since we're on the topic of robot,

AI That Compresses Weeks Into Days

SPEAKER_02 19:05

you know what comes next, uh, which is artificial intelligence. I profess I'm not an expert in this, but there are so many ways uh that you can we can talk about this topic. I mean, most importantly, as a software company, you know, part of your offering is a SaaS. And at least in the United States, we're experiencing a software downturn because this fear of AI. And recently I was in a meeting with full of room of VCs who, you know, supposed to be advocates for AI, but actually a lot of people have no idea what's gonna happen next.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a there's a lot of nervousness around. I'm actually surprised that it took you almost 15 minutes to get to the topic of AI. But here we are. So let me give you my take on AI. I know there's a lot of nervousness. Um and a lot of people also fear that AI is gonna take their jobs away. Yes, actually, the VCs were actually afraid of their job gonna be taken away. I have a very different view on that.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Is AI gonna help us automate and make manual work easier? Absolutely. And does that mean that jobs will change? Absolutely. But AI is there to enhance what humans will do. AI will help us to make the shift towards even more val more value-add activities, and we'll be able to serve our customers even better. And AI will help us create new solutions that weren't possible before. Give you one example in the medical field as to how we have leveraged AI for years. Admittedly, not large language models, because that's more something of the last couple of years.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

But even 10 years ago, we started using AI, machine learning, collecting data, and now using that to, as I said, you know, make some of the manual steps easier. That has made that our lead times, so the time between a surgeon sending us the images and us shipping out the patient-specific device, used to be five or six weeks. We can do that now in a couple of days. A patient that comes into the hospital on Monday morning, or the surgeon typically finds the patient in the hospital, hospital bed because of some accident, for example, during the weekend. Surgeon looks at the patient, has the images taken on Monday, we get the images on the same day. The patient is treated on the Thursday, kept for one more night, and on Friday night before the next weekend, the patient is sent home. All of that is possible, amongst others, because we have leveraged AI to accelerate the um the process. And that makes that now trauma patients can benefit from these great solutions. Yeah. That wasn't possible when we had lead times of five or six uh six weeks. I mean, you don't keep a trauma patient in a bed for that long, right? Um not being able, I mean, if it's a facial trauma, not be being able to eat or you know, sometimes even breathe. Um So that has changed the type of offerings that we could bring. So AI enhances what we humans do, but it doesn't take jobs away. It changes the jobs dramatically.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

Yeah, that's a really good example in terms of um obviously that's a internal service you're providing a service for that. That's an internal operational optimization that really is dramatic change. Now, for external users of materialized software, do you have any offering too for the for these people?

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Well, so that's where I think the strength and the power of materialized in our business model comes along. Because we've built these AI algorithms for our own services. What we typically do with those, and what we've done in this specific case, is we also build these algorithms in our software so that we enable customers to be able to do exactly the same. So very often in our model, we learn what our customers need because we we are doing it ourselves. We build the solutions and then build that into our software as well. So if you look at our software today, there's a whole range of AI algorithms that are embedded in the software and that every user can have access to. And the second is that we obviously, you know, in the in the last couple of years, we um made it possible for users to use their own data libraries, apply AI to it, and then integrate it into the software so that they can benefit from their data, their specific data, um, and use the power of AI around that as well to accelerate their own processes. That's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, it's uh it's what we need to do to make the adoption, to accelerate the adoption of personalized cases. And as you very well know, our vision and mission is to bring personalization to as many patients as we can.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Starting from the Halo cases and the complex cases 10 years ago, we are on a journey of mass personalization, bringing it to everybody. And so doing it in our own services to enable more patients to have access, the example of the trauma patients, but also doing that in our software so that our customers can create new offerings as well, uh, deliver faster uh offerings, and with that address more patients is equally important.

Mass Personalization And New Frontiers

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Um, this is a good segue to now talk about vision. Yes. You know, I've seen a lot of really complex, difficult cases. It's almost typical for a 3D printing conference, you know, to have conjoint wing separation as uh one of the topics. Yes, of course. But we don't have a lot of those. Um and yesterday I saw a variety of cases that could be uh more scalable. So what is your idea of this mass personalization, let's say a short-term three to five years vision? Yeah. And then how does that expand in 10 years? Which, you know, I think is a basically a ballpark number of very far future.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Yeah, so I'm a fundamental believer of that adoption increasing in the medical scene. Not every case needs a personalized device or implant. Not every case needs a personalized uh pr 3D printed uh uh instrumentation kit. But every case should be uh approached with at least 3D technology, 3D modeling, hence pre-operatively or pre-interventional planning. Because that allows a surgeon or a physician to have a much better view on what the the issue is and gain speed in the uh in the OR as well, which saves time, cost, etc. So I'm a fundamental believer, and I think in the next three to five years, we'll see adoption further increase there where we already have established the value. Think about the orthopedic applications that we talked about and um and the or the craniumaxillofacial applications. So I think we'll see the the adoption increase in those segments, and then we'll have new segments or new applications that we'll see born. Uh, there's a lot of work in the pediatric field at this point in time. You might know about our tracheal splint um program, um, so where we 3D print a bioresorbable splint for babies that uh get born with a disease called TBM, where the trachea collapses, and then after two years, um essentially the problem uh resolves or the disease goes away, and with that our splint also goes away. Um so we'll see some of these applications, uh, new fields uh in the respiratory uh field at large. But we'll also see progress on the cardiovascular side in other soft tissue areas. And yesterday at the conference, I think you saw you saw plenty of examples in the soft tissue arena where we are only scratching the surface today. Um so next to growing the adoption in those markets where or segments where the value of additive and 3D technologies is largely established, um, we'll also see new fields where the value will be become clearer and where I think in three or five years we might be at the stage where that we are now in orthopedics or in CMF.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

And you mentioned personalized medicine. I think I remember I was joking, I mean, I I wish I mean we we should get personalized medicine, everybody. Every patient should. But the truth is the patient the doctors don't have the time to give you the amount of attention that you deserve to create this personalized case.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

And that's where, you know, technology can help them. Right. Because technology is the enabler of time saving for doctors. Um information will be available in an easier way, in a faster way, more information will be easy. It doesn't cost them time, it just changes the way they work. Um they will spend less time, but still some time, before the operation, rather than in the OR figuring out, as you said, opening up the patient and saying, oops, what do I find here? So so in total, it's less time spent, but it's spent differently.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

Yeah, absolutely. Now, you're one of the busiest CEO I see because you travel so much and yet always look so refreshed. Uh we are equally jet-lacked, uh, you just look better than me. I'm not sure about that. I'm trying. You go to many different markets and um you have to understand all the different healthcare systems. Uh, how are the conversations differ among these different markets all over the world for you?

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Well, there's huge differences um between uh geographies, uh, and they cannot all be compared. Now, again, I think that's the beauty about of uh additive or 3D technology, because it's very easy to adapt to local needs. Um the I mean the the flexibility is inherent to the technology. So, what are some of the key differences that I see? Um I would take the US and Europe in one bucket and and and and and essentially categorize them as more um advanced in the adoption of 3D technologies at large. That's driven by, I would think, not only um the market dynamics, but also about, you know, driven by us having us companies having taken more focus um in uh in those regions and having spent more time and effort in those regions. Whereas you see some other countries where there's literally no adoption yet. Um I mean, even large geographies, uh, Africa. I was thinking about that. Absolutely. Latin America, still a very uncovered um territory. Uh some some uh countries in Asia, not all of them, because some of them are very advanced as well. So so you see you know very different dynamics in those two regions. Now, um are we at the end of the journey yet in the US and Europe and the adoption? Absolutely not. Um that's gonna increase. Are we gonna see adoption very soon in the African markets or some of the Latin American markets? Not in all of them. Um it's gonna be a step-by-step approach because honestly, um 3D technologies at large only make sense when there's good imaging available.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Without imaging, 3D technologies can't really do a lot. So we're gonna follow the imaging technologies. As soon as imaging technologies are established, um, take the African markets as an example, it makes a lot of sense for us to follow.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

As a radiologist, I couldn't agree more. Oh, right, of course. Yeah, you would understand that. Yeah. Absolutely. It all starts there. Yeah. You know, speaking of the imaging cardio, um, yesterday when I was at the conference, they were talking about pediatric cardiology. Yes. That space has significantly advanced because the advancement of echo and MRI and uh the image resolution has improved significantly.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Absolutely. And I would actually say that in the congenital congenital art space, um the adoption of 3D technologies is huge.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Just because the variety of cases you see there, very often physicians lack the right solutions to treat these babies. Um it's not only babies, these young kids uh as well. Um and uh so the adoption is is is relatively high there, and and still there's a a need to bring even more solutions to that uh space. Um and we can learn from that for other segments. Um, because with the lack of solutions that the um congenital space had, they didn't have a choice. They had to adopt and now see the benefit. We can learn from that father spaces.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

Absolutely.

Investing Strategy And Targeted Acquisitions

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Now let's switch gear just slightly because you were at the JP Morgan conference. I was not sure why you were there. Uh just kidding. But you have a history of investing as well. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Absolutely. And you're not kidding about the JP Morgan um uh conference, because I get the question a lot, to be honest. Why were you at the JP Morgan conference? The main reason why I get that question is because people don't see us as a medical company yet. When you look at materialized, you think, well, additive, 3D printing, industrial areas, some type of technology. Um, but no, we are a medical company for in for everything we do in medical. So half of us is a medical company. So, yes, JP Morgan, which is a conference that brings together healthcare investors, um, you know, is absolutely a relevant place for uh for me to be. Now, yes, indeed, I was there, you know, with multiple purposes. One of them is as an investor. Um as you might know, we have a relatively um aggressive and deliberate MA strategy. Yeah um our um balance sheet is very healthy. We have the means to deploy some of that capital um wisely, um, and we are on track to do so. Uh so JP Morgan was an excellent place to meet some of the um companies, startups, um, scale-ups uh to have conversations as to whether there's a benefit of joining forces, uh, et cetera. And again, you know, JP Morgan is a great place to do that. There's other conferences that are you know great place to place to do that uh as well. And you'll see me traveling even more this year because you know I'll be attending those as well.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

So, what are your strategies of um for this side of the things, the future acquisition or investment? How do you I mean you actually obviously invest in the communities, uh, for example? I've seen some students uh benefiting from this conference.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

Yes, absolutely. And I think as this conference, you've seen one of the well, uh side of the investment that we do on educating people, um clearing awareness in the market, um, enhancing the adoption by inspiring about different applications. Um so that's one type of investment uh that we that that we do. Um investing into well the data collection and collecting the evidence to push forward reimbursement and funding from different sources is another type of investment um that we do. Obviously, you know, the the third range of investment is in our organic capabilities, in our RD. We uh we invest heavily in that. Um and it's one of the things I think where we differentiate from a lot of other companies in the space is that you know when markets are a little softer, which happens to all of us, right? That markets are a little softer. The one thing that we always keep and maintain is the uh investments in our D. Um because we fundamentally believe that that's our role to, and that's one of the big drivers to fulfill our mission to create a better and healthier world, um, to maintain that investment because there's still a lot to be done before we have um you know achieved the the um the dream of mass personalization specifically for the healthcare field. Um so that is an investment that we maintain. And now we're adding, um, you know, since I came in as uh as the CEO, we're adding um a deliberate MA investment as well. We acquired a uh a company a big year ago, one and a half years ago in the cardic space, um cardic simulation uh technologies, uh company called FIOPS. Um so that was one example of uh the uh the type of acquisitions um that we certainly plan to continue to do.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

That makes a lot of sense. Uh there's some similarity in that acquisition. That that is uh finite element analysis of the uh cardiology side.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Yes, uh in particular the structural heart side. Um the uh cardiac false or hard valves um for replacement uh repair uh situations, and it was a very neat complementary techno technology to what we already had in terms of the planning technologies for the structural heart space, where we focused on pure anatomical landmarks, uh, fiobs brings the simulation technology to also enhance that uh that uh the type of planning we can bring to physicians.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

As you know, we have an audience that's uh built with entrepreneurs and people right now probably perking up right now, hearing and materializers willing to invest or acquire. But we have a global portfolio. Um do you typically look at the European startups mostly or or how do you keep out?

SPEAKER_00 36:06

Absolutely not. So I mean, we are we are present as a company in 21 countries, 28 locations and we cover the globe. Um that literally goes from Japan to the US and Latin America. And the only continent that we're not present in is uh is Africa. Um so um and that's also kind of the geographical scope in which we look for acquisitions, partnerships, uh, etc. We don't have a preference for a particular region. Um absolutely not. We look at um the technology, the people, um, and obviously the value add of the technology and uh to what extent an unmet medical need um is uh is met with the technology and whether there is gonna be a willingness to pay off somebody by somebody. Are you guys in Mongolia by any chance? We are not in Mongolia.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

All right, okay. Okay, let's talk. Well, I think we're approaching the end of this interview. Um as I know you have a couple lined up here. Um but I want to just get to know you as a person

How Brigitte Recharges And Leads

SPEAKER_02 37:12

even more. Uh. Uh six to my uh two crazy devices. Yeah. I I think I think I I've heard more last night or some other uh interesting aspects of your life. So what do you do to recharge out of work, outside of work?

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Well, uh a lot, as you can imagine. Um well, first of all, I have uh three children in uh all over the place. Um my eldest um uh daughter is in Boston doing a PhD there. I have a son in California, and uh my uh youngest daughter is in uh actually she's moving up to Gothenburg now. So uh I'm taking her um to Gothenburg tonight. Um so so they're spread all over the place. Good locations, though. Great locations. They they didn't make it hard for me to visit a lot. Uh and obviously that's part of part of what I do, me and my husband do. Um we try to see them as much as we can um as you know, whenever we can build it into our busy schedules. Uh but then, you know, as you can figure, I'm a health freak. Um probably also what track what attracted me to the healthcare field uh initially. I run, um, I meditate, I do yoga, uh, I golf um when the weather is nice. I'm a good weather golfer. I think you're missing something. So what do I miss? You swim in in the winter. I do actually. I'm impressed you know that. I swim in the winter because cold water shocks are good for you. And um, I can't even imagine that. I can't even take a cold shower. So I'm just imagining that. It's been proven that that is a really important factor for longevity. So I can recommend it. That's why you always look so good.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

Um now how if you're so busy, how do you keep yourself up to date?

SPEAKER_00 38:53

Well, the the the digital world these days uh makes sure that we are very up to date in an in an easy way. Yeah. Um now, admittedly, you know, my my children being in so different places of the world, they feed me with a lot of information and learning. So always interesting to talk to them. Um so it's it it's inspiring in itself. Um and then I have a great bunch of people around me here. It's a luxury to work with you know the people that uh that we have at Materialize. Um and uh they have their hands on a lot of things and keep me abreast uh on those as well.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

And not to mention Materialize also has a podcast. Absolutely. And also you're a constant listener to the Lattice podcast.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Absolutely. Absolutely. Big fan of that. And really glad that you're doing that. It's it's important that we get the word out, that we you know share examples of what works and what doesn't work, um, and you're doing a fantastic job of building that community around this so that people can also have a network to reach out to in case they need to. I certainly appreciate your support.

SPEAKER_02 39:56

Now, uh if a young student, especially if uh as a female student um wants you to give some advice for her career, future, next generational entrepreneur, what would you tell her? Or him?

SPEAKER_00 40:10

Probably a couple of things. First is dare to be bold. It's the the the sky is the limit. And um you shouldn't start limiting yourselves by your own limiting beliefs. Um so be bold. Um that's the first one. And the second is um put yourself in the shoe of your customers. Always keep your customer in mind. Uh talk the language of the customer, try to really embed yourselves in in his or her environment and understand what the struggles are and what could change their lives. Um so that we focus on the customer needs, the clinical needs, and in particular, you know, in our space, the um the medical unmet needs that you see.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

And uh if you have one thing to tell us what you're gonna be super excited about in 10 years for 3D printing or 3D technologies in medicine, what would you say that was? Structural reimbursement? Okay. That would make me so happy. Very practical. Absolutely.

Closing And Safety Disclaimer

SPEAKER_02 41:10

I'd love to hear that. Thank you so much, Bahida. I hope this is one of many interviews we could do in the future. I'd love to. Thank you for inviting me here today. Thank you, Jennifer. Thanks for taking the time. This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. The views expressed do not constitute medical or financial advice. The technologies and procedures discussed may not be commercially available or suitable for every case. Always consult with a licensed professional.