A few years ago, while on a flight back to Charlotte after an out-of-town course on dental implants, Dr. Fred Thompson, a successful dentist of more than two decades, had an ah-ha moment. He grabbed his cocktail napkin and scribbled down what would become GuidePro3D, a surgical guide tool for placing dental implants and one of Charlotte’s newest startup companies.
StartCharlotte sat down with Thompson, originally from Oregon but now a proud Charlottean, and Grand Prize Runner-Up winner of the Charlotte Venture Challenge, to talk about GuidePro3D.
GuidePro3D began as a response to a need Thompson saw daily in his dental practice. He had yet to come across an accurate system or guide to assist dentists in difficult dental implant surgery. With 26 measurement factors involved in placing a single implant, the procedure is tricky and present guidelines have vast room for improvement.
Thompson's goal is to replace pre-made guides that in his experience often do not work correctly. He and his team want the dental implant process to be 100 percent customizable and in-office.
The GuidePro3D system comes equipped with a 3D printer, calibrated software, guide pieces, drills, and a patented irrigation system to cool the drills, he said. Thompson plans for GuidePro3D to be the game-changer the industry desperately needs.
“95 percent of dental implant surgeries are placed without the use of a guide - they’re freehanded,” he said. Traditionally there are barriers to the use of a guide; time, cost, workflow, and the need for a 3D x-ray are a few such barriers. Additionally, most competitor guides are non-alterable once made. “18 percent of guides are thrown away at the time of surgery,” Thompson said.
When drafting the initial plans for GuidePro3D, Thompson thought about the dental offices he had worked in and knew. To be successful in offices like these, he knew the product needed to be affordable, allow in-office process, be verifiable at time of surgery and be alterable and customizable.
“If you think about a typical dental office - there’s usually one dentist and a staff of four or five. What you really need is a guide that’s going to work predictably in-office, and that’s one of the strong points of our system,” he said.
The GuidePro3D system that will hit the market in October of this year looks different from what was on that in-flight cocktail napkin, Thompson admits, but time, trials and testing, and (quick!) $550 per hour phone calls with the attorney helped to morph GuidePro3D in to the product he and his team are proud to launch.
He and his team have performed more than 100 surgeries with variations of the GuidePro3D system, all successfully, and a team of 30 dentists in Portland, Oregon recently participated in a trial course with the system, to great success.
Thompson cites the support of his fiancée and business partner, Jennifer, for putting up with him through all the lows and helping to set GuidePro3D in motion along with co-founder Dr. Paul Crandall and CFO Jason Wandersee.
The GuidePro3D team is now looking for Charlotte-area partners and investors to help carry this product to market in the fall.
Visit https://www.guidepro3d.com for more information.
