DT News - MEA - Oral health matters: “This toothbrush is perfect, so why should we change it?”

Dental Tribune Middle East

Thu. 27 April 2023

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In pursuit of its philosophy of a healthy mouth equals a healthy body and mind, Swiss company Curaden develops top-class oral care products under its Curaprox brand and trains dentists and hygienists in the art of prevention through its individually trained oral prophylaxis program (iTOP). In this way, it seeks to help dental professionals become enablers of improved oral health. In this interview, Managing Director Christine Breitschmid, speaks with Dr Dobrina Mollova of Dental Tribune Middle East & Africa about oral prophylaxis, toothbrush design and the company’s goals and how it is going about achieving these all while considering its holistic sustainability.

Could you please tell us more about your experience and work at Curaden? How long have you been at Curaden for?
Since 2012. Of course, before I started working there, I knew a little about it, Curaden being my father’s company. Of course, I’ve always used the Curaprox toothbrush! As a child, I sometimes helped out to earn a little bit of money. In the last ten years, Curaden has grown a lot, developing many new products, moving into many new markets and expanding the dentists we work with. We’ve taken some big steps in the last 10 to 15 years, so it feels like I’ve been working at the company for a lot longer than ten years.

You’ve also been developing your digital technology, right?
In the end, of course, it’s all about toothbrushing, but digital tools can be used to support the patient and increase the patient’s motivation, for example. For this, we developed the BOB-App, which guides the patient on which interdental brush to use were. It also provides a bleeding on interdental brushing index and tracks improvement. Say the patient has 40 interdental spaces and out of these 30 have interdental bleeding, or 75%. The patient can visualise this poor result because it’s measured in the app. If the patient is motivated and taught how to change this with interdental brushing and cleans in between the teeth for the next few weeks, the results can be measured and shown in the app. Hopefully, he or she will then have a better score, providing the motivation to continue the journey.

Do you see further potential in your digital strategy?
There is still huge potential for us digitally, of course, because while it’s always the dentist or dental hygienist who tells patients what size interdental brush to use for each space today, maybe in the future, we can develop a technology that enables the interdental brush to indicate whether it’s too big or too small for the space. Many things are possible, but you have to know which technology to use or develop and then you have to determine whether it would really add value for the patient or the dentist. We are motivated to find ways for patients to learn and dentists to teach and motivate the patients towards the improvement of overall health or oral health Whatever supports this, we should work on to make it available as a digital tool.

What’s the story about manual versus electric toothbrushes?
The product is only as good as the person who uses it. So, if I’m very well trained in using my manual toothbrush, I will be a perfect tooth brusher and have close to zero problems. The same goes for the electric toothbrush. But if I don’t know how to use my manual toothbrush, it will not do what it could do. If I don’t know how to use my electric toothbrush, it will do some cleaning, but it could be much better. For electric toothbrushes, you also need to understand which technology, sonic or oscillating rotating, is better for what and when and how to use it. In the end, and this is our philosophy in our individually trained oral prophylaxis, it’s an individual choice for each .

Can you tell us more about your iTOP program, which means individually trained oral prophylaxis?
We are very passionate about our iTOP courses and training to teach dental professionals how to better motivate, educate and instruct their patients. That’s something that ideally students should learn from the beginning. First of all, how to take care of their own teeth and oral health as dental professionals and then how to pass on this knowledge to patients, including how to choose the right interdental brush, how to demonstrate the right techniques and how to choose the right tool for the right person. A dentist’s and dental hygienist’s job involves more than repair; it’s really coaching the patient for all his or her life. Then the patient will come back to the dentist happier and more regularly, making it worthwhile financially for the dentist.

I’d like to talk about the design of your toothbrushes because they’re amazing and eye-catching. Their design communicates that this company takes care of patients and their oral health. What was the rationale for the bright and varied colours?
One reason is our ambition to think about things a little differently than others and do things differently than others would, so if everybody goes with the standard colours and everything looks the same, then we should look different. Another reason is that, like all the products that we develop, they must be accepted by the patient. They must be non-traumatic and effective. Of course, the brush is effective, and it doesn’t hurt, but it’s also attractive owing to the colours and shape. Something beautiful is easier to accept than something that is ugly. In any case, you must have a toothbrush all your life, so why not make it a nice one? Why shouldn’t your toothbrush match your bathroom’s colour scheme? It’s so simple in a way. The colours also evoke lots of emotion. The design and simplicity are iconic for Swiss design engineering too.

Many companies are working on toothbrush shape, as well as the holder and working parts. What is your view on this, Curaden being more traditional?
No, we are not traditional; we have found the one solution. Form follows function, right? So first you have to understand what a toothbrush does and how it does it so that it can be most effective. That leads you very quickly to the discovery that the bristles must be flat, because if you make them different lengths, then you have to hold the brush in one perfect position and cannot move it, but of course you have to move it to clean the teeth. If the bristles are longer on one side and shorter on the other, the user is going to push harder so that all the bristles touch the tooth, potentially causing recession and pain. It’s thus better to have all the bristles the same length, but very thin and very dense. Our bristles are so thin that, when you move around the tooth, they adapt according to the shape of the tooth, so you don’t have to exert pressure because they will just align with the tooth. When it comes to the handle, it’s octagonal to give you a clear indication of how to hold the brush so that you don’t exert pressure and you apply it at the right angle. This is really form follows function; one has to design the toothbrush according to how it must work and not just design it because it’s beautiful. We do add colours and create special editions because this is fun, and it doesn’t change the quality of the product.

Are you a constant innovator?
We are not focused on constant innovation, but on making products that solve problems. This toothbrush is perfect, so why should we change it? The only thing we can do to improve it is making an even thinner bristle so that you can use more bristles, giving an even softer toothbrush. That’s what we’ve done with the new Velvet toothbrush, which has over 12,000 bristles, more than twice as many as a CS 5460 toothbrush.

Let’s talk sustainability and wooden toothbrushes. Do you have any?
We don’t yet have a wooden toothbrush, but we are working on one and might be able to launch it in summer. We have worked on a wooden toothbrush for more than three or four years, because it must be the perfect quality and perfectly effective. Do you want wood in your bathroom, or do you want clean and healthy teeth? The priority is clear and so whatever product we develop must fulfil this expectation, otherwise it’s not from Curaprox. It has taken us a long time, but now we understand about wood, and it’s interesting for us to perform the research to see what is possible. In Switzerland, we have wood, so it’s logical that we’d use Swiss wood. The trouble with wood is that it’s organic, so it moves and changes, which is problematic in the context of moisture from the mouth and water. You have to make holes for the bristles, and in getting wet and dry continually, the wood moves, so the risk is that the bristles fall out. We’ve worked on this for a long time, and now I think we have a good solution.

What exactly do you understand by sustainability?
Sustainability is a holistic approach also. It’s both things like what kind of material you use as well as doing things that are for long-term rather than short-term impact. For us, sustainability also means our long history of serving dental professionals. We work with dentists and act as their partner on the long term. We also want to serve the patient with long-term oral care... If you brush carefully and with the right technique, your toothbrush can last forever... It’s also an approach to sustainability to provide the necessary knowledge along with the product so that patients gain the most from it. If we can with our products and our know-how help people to take better care of their oral health, it also has an impact on general health. Better health is more sustainable because you may live a longer life or don’t need medicine so much. You have a happier life. This is our approach to sustainability as a company. We want to exist long term, so we are wise in our investments and don’t follow all the trends, in order to provide workplace security to the people who work with us. We take a very holistic approach.

What is your vision for the company?
I think it’s quite clear: better health for you. We want to change the value of oral selfcare in society, how it is taught and motivated. That’s why we do so much in education, to make sure that oral care improves and thus helping to improve general health.

You don’t have any dentists in the family, right? How did your father come to have this vision when he created the company?
He created the Curaprox brand, and his father, who was a dental technician, created the company. He likes to question the status quo, and then he was trying to find a niche where he could change something. At that time, in the seventies and early eighties, it wasn’t widely known that sugar is really the cause of caries. The lifestyle was shifting to sugar-dense diets, but oral hygiene didn’t keep up. I think it was a period when dentists were thinking about the problem of caries, realising that toothbrushing was not enough and becoming interested in interdental brushes. My father spotted this opportunity to innovate interdental brushes. Stepping into this niche gave him the chance he was looking for to change the world.

How do you see Curaden evolving in the next year, two years, or five years?
We want to be much more active at university level, political level and association level, to raise awareness of the importance of changing the curriculum to teach students the connections between oral health and overall health, the causes of oral health problems in relation to prevention and how to instruct patients on oral care.

I like your passion, but what’s the motivation for the dentist with only prevention? It seems that dentistry would have to change entirely to accommodate a prevention-oriented approach.
There are big challenges. You might have to change the idea of what your main role of being a dentist is and see yourself as a coach for your patients to help them to help themselves. Patients will still have oral health problems, such as dental trauma requiring a new tooth or a deterioration in oral healthcare owing to a life crisis. There will still be some caries, but maybe there will be fewer problems. Maybe fewer dentists will be needed in the future, maybe being a dentist will become more fun in the future.

Tell me about Curaden’s new cooperation with the International Team for Implantology (ITI).
It may be the case that a patient needs an implant because of an accident, but mostly the reason is poor oral hygiene beforehand. As a preventive oral care company, we believe that it is crucial to teach the patient a good oral care routine and motivate him or her before placing the implant and then to make sure that he or she maintains this after the implant is in the mouth. Otherwise, there is the risk of peri-implantitis or some other complication. This is where Curaden can complement the ITI. That’s why I think on the scientific side it’ll be valuable for us to work together and be present at the ITI’s congresses to provide information on the tools and the techniques on how to motivate first before implant placement and afterwards to take care of the implant. I see lots of synergies with our touch-to-teach training for implantologists or their co-workers in the office so that they can better teach their patients holistic oral hygiene.

What are the greatest challenges facing the company?
Changing mindsets. Our challenge is that we sell products, but we want to sell teaching. Our products are beautiful, and they work very well, but in the end, what we really want to do is to talk with professionals about how they can work better with their patients. The product is only one of the tools, the main thing is education and motivation. As a product company, also positioning ourselves in the educational field is the challenge.