SMILE AND THE WORLD SMILES WITH YOU

By Nicky Godding, Editor

Social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok are helping to drive the rising demand for perfect teeth.

Also driving growth are an increase in demand for dental cosmetic procedures, rising incidences of tooth disease and technological advances in dentistry.

To meet this growth, the dental market is expected to increase from more than $30 billion in 2021 to $52 billion by 2028.

At the centre of this global industry is Prima Dental – now the leader in design and the biggest manufacturer of dental burs in the world. With a global workforce of around 260, manufacturing operations in Gloucester (its head office), Brazil and China and a turnover of £29 million (expected to rise to £36 million this year, with £30 million out of Gloucester), it makes more than 40 million burs a year and exports them to around 90 countries, with the USA its biggest market.

A dental bur is a tiny drill piece made from carbide inserted into a dentist’s drill, enabling them to cut teeth. The higher quality the bur, the better outcome a dentist can achieve (and the least patient discomfort) – and Prima Dental’s burs are of superior quality.

A major key to Prima Dental’s recent growth has been a long-standing commitment to technology and automation. The company has just finished a £3 million investment in equipment, funded largely from its own earnings. Over the last six years it has invested around £25 million in the business, including major ongoing investment in automation, along with an additional new factory building at Gloucester.

Dental sector bounces back from pandemic

Last summer, at the height of the pandemic, the company appointed a new Group Managing Director. Alun Jones, previously the company’s financial director, took over from Richard Muller, who moved into the executive chair role to focus on strategic development.

“It had been a pretty challenging time for us all,” said Alun. “In March going into April 2020, many dental surgeries shut so demand stopped overnight.

“We didn’t know how long it was going to last, but there was still a need for medical and dental products for dentists to alleviate pain, so the factory remained operational throughout the whole period.”

Alun and Richard had experienced recessions before and knew what actions to take. “Even though we were working remotely, we put a strategy together quickly. Cash is king so we safeguarded our cash position as much as possible, then focused on preparing the business to build back up.”

The approach worked. “We kept our management team in place and supported them. This helped us come out of the pandemic better and stronger,” he added.

While the global dental industry took a severe hammering during Covid, when dental surgeries across the world were forced to close, the sector is bouncing back quicker than anyone expected.

However, the come-back hasn’t been without its challenges. “It has taken us longer to build back our workforce, and there are ongoing supply chain issues which every manufacturer is having to tackle,” added Alun.

“Brexit also had its challenges, and while they were not insurmountable, I’d have preferred it not to have happened. Now our biggest challenge is around regulatory, which is getting much stricter around medical and dental products.”

However, Alun says this could be to Prima Dental’s long-term benefit, as some less scrupulous players are likely to disappear from the market.

The future is more innovation and diversification

Prima Dental is looking to innovation and diversification, which it kick-started in 2018 with the appointment of carbide tooling expert Dr Marilyn Goh who now leads the company’s research and development.

“Prima Dental designs and engineers milling tools for digital dental labs around the world,” said Alan. “More recently we have identified a big demand for similar tools and equipment in the medical sector. We have significant expertise in that area, and while we continue to develop new dental products, there is scope for us to widen our product range.”

The manufacturer is also working on a £470,000 Innovate UK project with King’s College in London, looking at how manufacturing technology could reduce virus transmission in dental procedures.

“It was our first attempt in getting an Innovate UK grant. We had been warned that our first application was likely to be rejected, so we were delighted to hear we’d been successful,” said Alan.

A money-making career –literally

Alun, 64, joined Prima Dental in 2013. An accountant by training but with a deep love of manufacturing, his first job certainly saw him in the money – spending more than a decade working as a financial accountant at the Royal Mint in South Wales.

He moved into the automotive industry, where he spent around 20 years first with Dutch, then German family businesses.

“I joined Prima Dental because Richard had great ambitions for the growth of the business, particularly fostering partnerships outside the UK. For me this was new and different. Since then we have achieved so much, and are planning for 20 per cent growth this year.

“We continue to gain business opportunities around the world. And although America is still our largest market, we are still winning business opportunities there. We are also market leaders for carbide burs in Brazil and our joint venture in China, which we established in 2018, is profitable and growing. That was a challenge for us because the Chinese market for carbide burs is complex but we’ve grown the business quite quickly thanks to a good relationship with our manufacturer there aligned with our sales and distribution expertise.”

Brazil and China are both trading at above pre-pandemic levels, added Alun.

The future is bright for Prima Dental

Prima Dental is a people-focused company, and not travelling during Covid travel bans was difficult for the team. They had previously been used to regular global face-to-face meetings.

But with travel bans lifting, the team is starting to move across the world again, albeit not as much. And the company recently welcomed the boss of its joint venture manufacturing facility in China –the first time he’d visited for four years.

The future seems pearly-white for Prima Dental as it continues to gain in productivity and efficiencies, but Alun is cautious of complacency. “Our strength is due to our committed and dedicated workforce. However we need to keep ahead of the curve. We have a strong distributor network around the world, a diversification and growth strategy and are beginning to tackle the carbon zero challenge.

“We are working towards the environmental management system ISO 14001 and hope the business will achieve it by early next year. We are heavy users of electricity and with increasing costs we are looking at solar power at our factory and a variety of offsetting measures.

“We are also looking at our plastic use in packaging, but that has its challenges as we have to meet regulatory and biocompatibility requirements. It’s not as straightforward as it might appear.”

Despite all these challenges, Alun is upbeat. “We have new opportunities, and expansion into new markets in the pipeline – some of which will come to fruition within the next 18 months. While we are a global business, we are a Gloucester company, strongly rooted here and will continue to grow.”