Geniova - The world’s fastest tooth aligner, revolutionizing the dental sector

Crooked or misaligned teeth are becoming more common these days. A study has revealed that consumption of junk processed food is responsible for the misalignment of the teeth in the younger generation as it requires less chewing than the foods eaten by our early ancestors. There are, however, multiple factors that can lead to crooked or misaligned teeth. While normal misalignments can make you look unaesthetic, a severe misalignment can cause other problems like health issues or speech issues. Getting them aligned is ideal, but most people never get it aligned due to less advanced techniques available in the market.

Geniova, an innovative startup, was born with the aim of revolutionizing the dental sector with a new world patent for orthodontics in the segment of removable dental aligners. Through a high level of research and development in design and 3D printing, it unites the best of the technologies that lead the market.

We got in touch with Antonio Baselga, CEO, for more details about the company

What the differences between traditional braces and Geniova’s braces? Is treatment time different in Geniova’s invisible orthodontic?

Traditional metallic braces were among the first orthodontic appliances utilized for orthodontic treatment of misaligned or crooked teeth. While the technique had the advantage of attaining faster teeth movements, it also had some major disadvantages: its unaesthetic look, its fixed to the teeth nature, and, most importantly, the hygiene and discomfort.

Those reasons contribute to explain why fixed braces are barely used for adults in comparison to teenagers. In the mid 90’s the situation improved with the appearance of removable aligners solving the aesthetical problem as they were made with transparent plastic. However, the plastic ones were less effective in the speed of movements in comparison with fixed metallic brackets. The major development brought by Geniova is that it has been able to combine the best attributes of both fixed braces and conventional aligners.

From traditional fixed braces and thanks to its unique patented feature whereby it incorporates a lingual Niti arch, Geniova is able to match the speed of movements achieved by fixed braces nearly. At the same time, its patented device is also made of a removable plastic aligner, providing the invisibility required nowadays. In other words, the Geniova technique offers a new hybrid category incorporating the best of both techniques, fixed braces and removable aligners, with its significant competitive advantage being the reduction of the treatment time by reducing the number of aligners required for different cases.

What are the challenges you had to face while developing invisible orthodontic with a hybrid system? How did you overcome them?

Geniova is still a small company with an advanced technique in the market. In the beginning, Geniova’s movement was limited to the anterior segment, and we were utilizing a vestibular Niti arch. Thanks to our R&D and clinical documentation, we have expanded the technique to posterior teeth movements and utilized an interior or lingual Niti archwire. We believe our existing device is unique in its category as no other brackets with removable archwire devices exist today in the market. Also, the ease of use of this device is much greater than other fixed lingual techniques that require longer work-out times from orthodontists.

For some people, the jawbone could be too rigid or misaligned to fix without more complex methods such as surgery. How do you overcome this issue?

Our technique is just to treat teeth malocclusions. Jawbone problems that require to achieve bone changes or maxillary movements are still treated with fixed appliances, but Geniova can be part of the pre-surgery decompensation orthodontic treatment.

How do you maintain the affordability of your solutions for mass adoption?

Digitalization increasingly gains a higher weight in the design and manufacturing process coupled with new, more efficient, and productive 3d printing machines allowing us to reduce manufacturing costs and keep our devices affordable. A key feature of our technique is that our production process requires the use of a significantly lower number of dental models.

Tell us about your technology and how will you cope with future developments?

The dental sector is changing rapidly, primarily due to its digitalization and improvements in 3D technology. Geniova is strongly benefiting from those developments with technological changes reducing cost and improving its efficacy. An example is the gradual disappearance of physical impressions thanks to increasing penetration of oral scanners or the new advances in biocompatible materials that could be directly 3D printed, avoiding the existing thermoforming step currently prevailing in manufacturing aligners.

What does the future hold for your company?

We believe we are at the early stage of a new hybrid aligner category able to reduce treatment times and the final number of aligners used. The market is still much focused on esthetics and transparency. Still, time reduction in complex treatments is becoming more important, and it is where Geniova has a great future. Also, new R&D developments are being studied in order to allow the technique to introduce the use of square and rectangular Niti archwires, along with the use of round Niti archwires, that will continue to improve the speed and predictability of our technique in comparison to conventional aligners.

Meet the man behind the success of Geniova

For most of my career I have been involved in the private equity industry. Since 2008, I am on my own creating and participating in the development of startup companies in different sectors with requiring a high level of innovation and technology and based in Spain. As of today, I am co-founder and CEO of Geniova and this is my main project at the current time.

“The Geniova accelerator makes a movement of 1mm per month, compared to 0.51mm for the conventional invisible.”