How 3D printer makers like Stratasys, Protolabs, and other companies like Ford, are helping fight COVID-19 by 3D printing face shields and medical equipment
With critical medical gear in short supply, additive manufacturing is an “essential part” of the pandemic response, the industry says.
Context & Ripple Effects
The additive-manufacturing industry is positioning itself as surge capacity for a medical system running short of protective gear: Stratasys, Protolabs and Ford are printing face shields and medical equipment, while Carbon — fresh off its resin-pool process that prints far faster than layer-by-layer methods — is separately scrambling to design and produce FDA-approved medical equipment for the response.
The regulatory groundwork predates the pandemic: the FDA approved the first 3D-printed drug back in 2015, so the pathway exists even if device approvals move slower. And Stratasys has been building toward distributed output since it demoed a modular wall of cloud-controlled printers producing in assembly-line fashion in 2017.
First-order effects
- Hospitals facing shortages of face shields get a new supply line within days rather than tooling months, with Ford redirecting factory floor space and Protolabs' service network absorbing print jobs at scale.
- Carbon's push for FDA-approved parts puts its $2.4B industrial platform directly into regulated medical manufacturing, not just prototyping.
Second-order effects
- FDA review speed becomes the competitive variable: whichever printer maker clears device approval first converts emergency goodwill into a durable position in medical supply chains.
- Traditional medical-equipment manufacturers face a new class of competitor — automakers and service bureaus who can flex capacity on demand without retooling.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, additive manufacturing gets institutionalized as national emergency infrastructure, with regulators maintaining standing fast-track pathways for 3D-printed medical devices.
- The industry's long pitch — production as capability rather than prototyping — gains its proof case, accelerating the shift of manufacturing toward distributed, software-routed printer networks like the one Stratasys demoed years earlier.
The trend: Additive manufacturing is crossing from prototyping tool to strategic production capacity, with pandemic demand and FDA approval cadence setting how fast the transition sticks.