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Corporate Profile: 3M ESPE Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director Dentaltown Magazine

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by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine
3M ESPE is a giant among dental product manufacturers and a technological leader in the dental profession. The constant change and new developments within this company are mind boggling. 3M ESPE Vice President and General Manager Jeff Lavers answered our questions about how the company develops its products, what the ultimate goal is when developing new ideas, what it intends to do with some recent acquisitions and how collaboration with dental professionals will define the future of dentistry.

Jeff, what's your history with 3M and what is your experience in the dental division?
Lavers: I've been with 3M for more than 20 years. I started originally with 3M Unitek, then I moved into our Dental division where I held various responsibilities in marketing and international management. I lived in Europe for a few years running our European dental business. Later on I became the director of marketing and was deeply involved in the acquisition of ESPE Dental AG at the time. Shortly after we acquired ESPE, I led a business unit in the Industrial Tape and Adhesives Division, and then our Automotive Aftermarket Division, which sells products to body shops for car repair. In January 2007, I came full circle to run the 3M ESPE Division.
How is 3M ESPE positioned within the larger parent of 3M?
Lavers: 3M has six big businesses and 3M ESPE is part of the Health Care group. Within Health Care is 3M ESPE; our 3M Unitek business; our 3M Medical Division, which is primarily disposable products like drapes, gowns and tapes; and 3M Health Information Systems, which is a software business to help hospitals understand insurance coding as well as patient records. We also have a business called 3M Drug Delivery Systems, which is primarily a R&D and manufacturing support business for pharmaceutical companies in the delivery of medicaments.
3M certainly has the reputation as an innovative company. Can you explain how new ideas are developed and how these new ideas are prioritized?
Lavers: We solicit a lot of input from the market, and we do it through our sales and marketing teams, and many opinion leader meetings. We bring practicing dentists together from around the world throughout the year and we talk about new ideas and show them early technologies. We also tap into 3M's current technology; my division has access to a veritable R&D "candy store" within 3M which is currently building off of 40 key technology platforms that range anywhere from ceramics to nanotechnology to key adhesive technology to things seemingly unrelated to dentistry.

Can you give us an example of one of your current products that has used that process of leveraging known technologies for some other use?
Lavers: Absolutely. Our company has a strong foundation in nanotechnology and Filtek Supreme Plus is our nanotechnology composite. We approached our corporate scientists and said, "We want to create a filling material that takes advantage of the unique qualities that nanotechnology delivers." Part of our breakthrough, in addition to having bonded nanofillers, is that we also have nanoclusters within our filling materials. This unique property in how we propagate the material gives our product better density, better translucency and a more universal handling characteristic that you couldn't find otherwise.

Reliability and quality control are certainly key values for 3M. What level of reliability does a 3M product need to have before it reaches the market? How do you know when something's ready to be sold?
Lavers: There are a couple of things we have to monitor. First and foremost is to ensure stable and repeatable processes in manufacturing. We have a series of tests that we run internally on all of our product designs. They have to go through rigorous testing to make sure we have a repeatable and predictable process. Not only do our products have to work, but they have to work every time. We've put in place tight parameters to ensure we have the right understanding for how we're going to be measuring our products' performance. We then do a series of tests in the marketplace; we start in vitro testing with many different dentists from around the world to look at the product and ask them how it handles, if it has the types of properties they're looking for, if it's something they can readily use, if their staff can use it and what sort of training they'll require. Then as we progress toward in vivo testing, we do more clinical evaluations. We perform a series of pre-clinical evaluations where we're with doctors doing very early testing. We then go through a whole series of tests in terms of field evaluations in different markets and we use all that input to adjust the product to make sure we have a product that dental professionals can trust.

What would be the timeline from having your final recipe to having the product boxed and on its way to the distributors?
Lavers: It usually takes us about three years from a product concept to get it out to the marketplace. The latter part of that, in terms of testing, is anywhere from six months to a year, minimum.
In October 2006, 3M ESPE completed a high profile acquisition of Brontes Technologies for about $95 million. Describe your approach as you've readied this product for full release, and what is your timetable?
Lavers: We bought a product we considered to be in feasibility stage — very promising technology, but very early in terms of
a fully ready product. We're still in what we call the early evaluation. We're selling the product, but also continually looking for ways to improve its performance so we can ensure it's meeting dentists' needs. This technology is so exciting to us and it's so game changing. It's a tremendous opportunity to do things in a new light, and you have to learn new techniques in order to do it.
3M also recently acquired IMTEC Corp. What are your plans for this addition to your portfolio and how soon before we can expect 3M ideas and technologies to be applied to this existing line of implants?
Lavers: We have considered the implant space for a long time. An implant is probably one of the best restorations you can do from a stability perspective and in terms of patient satisfaction and overall oral health. We want to take technology into the marketplace to simplify the process and procedure of implants. We're trying to figure out ways to link our existing technologies together to guide a better understanding of treatment planning for implants. We believe there's a good opportunity for dentists to take a good cone beam scan with IMTEC's Iluma CBCT unit, as well as a digital impression, after which the dentist would send those files to 3M ESPE for creation of a surgical guide for placement of the implants that takes into account all important data points — where nerves are, sinus cavities, bone density, etc. — so that you can truly understand where an implant can be properly placed.

How do you gather customer feedback on a product once an item's on the market and where should our readers go to get answers to questions or provide feedback on products they are using?
Lavers: We're very proud of our customer care organization and they can be reached by phone (800-634-2249) or online (www.3mespe.com). We work very diligently with our team to make sure they're trained and have access to the right people internally to get quick solutions to questions. We want to make sure it's easy for customers to get answers, because we appreciate and understand that their time is very valuable.

The digital workflow concept is something that 3M ESPE has been actively promoting. Could you describe this concept? Will this digital workflow be for the majority or will only the cutting-edge minority be receptive to this concept?
Lavers: Over time we think it's applicable to the general population. I look at it this way: say I'm a GP, I have a patient who presents with a certain type of treatment need or there's a certain type of treatment plan I want to put together for him. I might or might not need the use of some specialists to help me in that treatment plan. We would like to have the GP be the gatekeeper for the whole treatment plan and they can digitally use various assets to share with other colleagues, specialists or labs, as needed. The digital workflow can greatly condense the time needed for treatment and can ultimately improve the fit, form and function of the treatment itself.

In the coming months and years, dentists are going to be faced with opportunities to purchase things like the Lava Chairside Oral Scanner C.O.S. or Iluma CBCT. How does a dentist, on his own merits, decide if that technology is going to have a significant impact on their particular practice's productivity?
Lavers: One of the things that's going to be important from the business perspective of dentistry is to really understand, "How do I make money in my practice and how can I be more efficient in my practice?" Where does productivity start; is it in the chair or the front office? It's both. What the dentist needs to ask is, "How much time do I block off for various treatments? Is there a way for me to reduce that treatment time so I can free up my calendar for the opportunity to see more patients in that same amount of time?" We're working hard on technologies to try to reduce the treatment time necessary vs. the time you're spending on treatments now. We're trying to have great clinical outcomes while reducing the amount of time that's necessary to do that. We're also trying to find out ways we can condense treatment times or maybe even eliminate steps or appointments in the process. Dentists need to understand what their overhead is, what their value per minute is, how they can block less time for certain procedures and what's available to them. I think some dentists don't realize how important productivity metrics are with regards to how their business operates. I would encourage dentists to really dig in to these metrics. As new technologies come about, it's going to be important for them to evaluate how technologies are going to impact the bottom line.
Do you think that the ever-increasing adoption of technology is going to have the net result of maybe increasing productivity but significantly increasing the cost of dentistry for the general public?
Lavers: I don't see that it will raise the cost of dentistry for the general public. Technology has to show significant clinical benefit, meaning it has to do something clinically better than we could do otherwise, and/or it has to have a productivity gain. I'd ask the dentist, "If you have that productivity gain, what do you want to do with it? Do you want to see more patients in that time?" That has to be the economic argument of saying, "Now I can increase the amount of patient flow

Many of 3M ESPE’s product developments and testing are conducted in its facilities in Seefeld, Germany.
and therefore it increases my revenue stream." Or, you can use it to market your practice differently and maybe it's the fact that you can spend more quality time with patients — because there's an audience of patients who want that extra attention.
What's the three-year plan for 3M ESPE?
Lavers: The big push is to continue to expand the digital workflow. We're very in tune with the fact that it's in its early stages, so we have to be patient. A lot of international markets are emerging. Dentistry is really starting to pick up in other parts of the world, and 3M ESPE has the benefit of being in these areas, so we're working really hard to establish our organizations and our presence in these regions. 3M ESPE's plan always is to be the gold standard in every category we play in, from the strong foundation of our core materials business in direct and indirect procedures to our expanding portfolio in digital dentistry.
Our readers love to learn about new products on the horizon. Are there any new products on your horizon that you're able to share?
Lavers: Springtime of next year, we have a lot of new assets coming on board as it relates to the whole digital dentistry part of our business and we're very excited about those. There are also some innovative approaches to looking at a total restoration as opposed to just a coping or other parts. We have some exciting technologies coming out in the prevention area. I think we have great chemistry within our products, but a lot of times where we've missed the boat in the past is we've not necessarily put them in the right delivery vehicles, meaning convenient ways to administer it to the patient. We are really trying to work away from the hand mix and other tedious processes and get into direct delivery and direct dispense and we have some new exciting technologies that we think will be impactful.

3M ESPE solicits a lot of input from the market, but also taps into its own R&D.
Many dentists are concerned about the current state of the economy. What changes do you see in your business when times are tough for dentists?
Lavers: Parts of dentistry are, frankly, elective. You can either defer treatment or you can downstream treatment, meaning you have patients saying, "Maybe I won't get the implant, and I'll just get the bridge instead since it's more affordable." As the economy gets tough, this is a great opportunity to look at things like prevention. I think there are many things that we talk about in dentistry that are made elective that shouldn't be made elective. It's in all of our interests to try to make patients aware that they can defer on some of these things, but is that what they really want? Thus, an area we're paying very close attention to is the concept of good oral care being the gateway of good overall care. My hope is that we can get to a firm understanding of "great healthcare really starts with great oral care." If we can get in that mode, all of dentistry has a great opportunity for continued success.
Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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