Mectron S.p.A., the Ligurian company founded in Carasco in 1979 and known worldwide for having developed piezoelectric bone surgery (PIEZOSURGERY®), announces that it has signed a framework agreement with Hu-Friedy Mfg. Co., LLC, part of the Chicago-based HuFriedyGroup, for the sale of its dental business.
The transaction covers Mectron’s dental business in Italy, which will be contributed to a newly incorporated company sold in full to HuFriedyGroup, the German subsidiary Mectron Deutschland Vertriebs GmbH of Cologne (whose medical activities remain with Mectron) and the dental activities of the US subsidiary Piezosurgery Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, together with the commercial and research and development team dedicated to dental products, which will join HuFriedyGroup.
Manufacturing stays in Carasco
Industrial continuity is the defining feature of the agreement. The Carasco plant, where Mectron has designed and manufactured all of its devices since 1979, will continue to produce the full dental range for HuFriedyGroup under a multi-year supply agreement, which will take effect on completion of the transaction, supported by a transitional services agreement to ensure continuity for customers and distributors. Mectron thus becomes the industrial and technology partner of one of the world’s leading dental groups, and keeps in Liguria its manufacturing, its production skills and the know-how built over more than forty-five years.
Italian technology for a larger part of the world
Through HuFriedyGroup’s network in some 100 countries, the technology designed and built in Carasco will be able to reach a far larger number of markets, practices and clinicians than Mectron has served directly to date through its own sales network in around 50 countries. The transaction builds on and extends the collaboration started in 2023, when HuFriedyGroup began distributing Mectron’s piezoelectric scaling and airpolishing devices under its own brand in the United States and Canada.
A benchmark partner in global dentistry
Founded in Chicago in 1908 by Hugo Friedman, Hu-Friedy has for more than a century been one of the most authoritative and respected names in dental instrumentation worldwide, chosen by clinicians, universities and dental-hygiene schools for the precision and durability of its instruments. Today HuFriedyGroup brings together the Hu-Friedy, Crosstex, Accutron, Omnia and SS White Dental brands and, since 2024, is a portfolio company of Peak Rock Capital.
Mectron moves forward in the medical field
Mectron will pursue its development by focusing on its medical business, established in 2009 around the PIEZOSURGERY® systems for the operating theatre (oral and maxillofacial surgery, ENT, neurosurgery and spine surgery, hand and foot surgery) and on its role as manufacturer and technology partner of HuFriedyGroup for dental products. Research and development and manufacturing remain entirely in Italy.
“Mectron was founded in Carasco forty-seven years ago by two engineers, and it was here that, together with Professor Tomaso Vercellotti, we developed piezoelectric bone surgery, now used in clinics all over the world,” said Antonio Bolfo, Chairman of Mectron’s Holding Company. “With this agreement, our dental products join the house of one of the most respected brands in global dentistry, while their manufacturing stays where it has always been: in our plant, with our people and our know-how. It confirms our ties to the region and gives Italian technology the chance to reach far more of the world. Mectron will keep growing in the medical field, where piezoelectric technology still has a great deal to offer surgery.”
“Bringing Mectron’s dental business into HuFriedyGroup combines Mectron’s leading piezoelectric and airpolishing technologies and clinical expertise with HuFriedyGroup’s strengths in instrumentation, education and global customer relationships.”
“We see significant opportunity to combine Mectron’s innovation and clinical heritage with HuFriedyGroup’s global commercial reach to accelerate new product development and make these technologies available to more clinicians and patients. Just as importantly, we intend to build upon the capabilities and expertise that have made Mectron’s dental business successful while investing in its next phase of growth.”
Completion of the transaction is expected by the end of 2026, subject to the completion of the procedures required by law and to the satisfaction of the other conditions precedent customary for transactions of this kind. Until then the two companies will continue to operate fully independently; nothing changes in the immediate term for customers, distributors and suppliers.
