Clear aligner manufacturers face a long innovation cycle shaped by high clinical and aesthetic expectations, where regulatory approval is just the starting point. In this episode of the Orthodontic Products Podcast, host Alison Werner speaks with Dai Feng, executive chairman of Angelalign Technology and co-founder of CareCapital, the dental and orthodontic investment group behind the brand, about how that dynamic has shaped the company’s approach. Drawing from his extensive background in medical device investing, Feng discusses the unique demands of the orthodontic industry and shares how Angelalign’s distinct origins—founded by orthodontic professors—steered the company to tackle complex extraction cases early on, rather than focusing solely on simpler aesthetic corrections to generate revenue.

As the clear aligner market grows increasingly competitive, Feng explores the challenges of scaling a global business while maintaining personalized treatment planning and ensuring the orthodontist remains in the command seat. He details the company’s strategic expansion into the U.S. market, which includes establishing highly experienced local support teams and building a new manufacturing facility in Wisconsin, slated to begin operations in early 2027. Furthermore, Feng candidly addresses the litigious nature of the clear aligner space, explaining how Angelalign methodically manages patent challenges to guarantee business continuity for its North American partners. For orthodontists evaluating different aligner systems, this conversation offers an inside look at how a manufacturer’s culture, continuous investment in workflow efficiency, and responsiveness to clinician feedback directly influence product development and everyday practice support.

What You Will Learn From This Episode

  • How the continuous innovation cycle in orthodontics differs from traditional medical device development.

  • Why Angelalign’s orthodontist-founder roots drove an initial focus on treating complex extraction cases.

  • The importance of maintaining a strong feedback loop to integrate chairside insights into treatment planning software.

  • What U.S. practices can expect in terms of production and delivery from the upcoming Wisconsin manufacturing facility.

  • How the company navigates ongoing patent litigation in the aligner space without disrupting continuity of care.

Chapters

02:07 From Harvard engineering to orthodontic investing
04:25 Why orthodontics demands continuous product improvement
06:06 Angelalign’s founding focus on difficult cases
10:17 The challenge of personalizing care as the company grows
13:18 Turning a clinician’s IPR request into product feedback
15:35 Keeping orthodontists in control of treatment planning
17:27 Supporting practices beyond the patient case
19:47 Building North American teams and Wisconsin manufacturing
22:49 Patent litigation and continuity for customers
24:20 Angelalign’s investment priorities and company culture
26:17 What makes orthodontics a distinct innovation ecosystem

Guest Bio

Dai Feng is executive chairman of Angelalign Technology and co-founder of CareCapital. A Harvard engineering graduate, he previously led Warburg Pincus’ healthcare investing across Asia.

Podcast Transcript

Alison Werner (00:06)
The clear aligner market has grown into one of the most competitive corners of the orthodontic industry, with manufacturers racing to prove their systems can handle not just simple cosmetic cases, but the complex extraction-level treatment that once belonged to braces alone. As that race plays out across global markets, the question for orthodontists isn’t just which system moves teeth most predictably, it’s which company is actually listening to the clinicians using it and investing accordingly as it scales. Welcome to the Orthodonic Products

I’m your host, Alison Werner. In this episode, I’m speaking with Dai Feng executive chairman of Angelalign Technology and co-founder of CareCapital the dental and orthodontic investment group behind Angel. Feng is a Harvard engineering graduate who built and led Warburg Pincus’ healthcare investing across Asia before co-founding CareCapital He sits on the Harvard School of Dental Medicine Board of Fellows, and he’s been an investor in a range of cutting-edge dental technologies, including Neocis dental robots

and LightForce Orthodontics among more than 50 portfolio companies. In our conversation, Feng talks about what drew him from engineering and medical device investing into orthodontics and what he found once he got there, an industry where, unlike most medical device fields, regulatory approval is just the starting point, not the finish line. We get into how Angelalign’s orthodontist-founder roots have shaped its focus on complex cases over simpler cosmetic ones, how the company builds clinician.

feedback directly into treatment planning and product development and what’s driving its U.S. expansion, including a new manufacturing facility in Wisconsin slated to come online in early 2027. We also talk candidly about patent litigation in the aligner space, how Angelalign is managing that as it grows internationally, and what Feng believes is the real challenge for any company in this field as it scales. Staying personal, staying responsive, and keeping orthodontists in command of the treatment they prescribe.

Here’s

our conversation.

Alison Werner (02:07)
Dai thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it.

Dai Feng (02:10)
Absolutely. Uh it’s great to be here with you and I’ve seen a lot of your podcasts, so it’s great to be finally on one of your podcasts.

Alison Werner (02:17)
well I appreciate that. Thank you. Well, okay, so to get started, just can you talk a little bit about your background? It’s engineering and investing. So what first drew you into dentistry and then to orthodontics more specifically?

Dai Feng (02:32)
Well for me everything um happened kind of naturally without much planning. I was uh engineering major at Harvard, and when I graduated, I was thinking about going to academia, just like my parents, next door in Cambridge. Um, and then I met a girl, she’s from Hong Kong. I went to Hong Kong to pursue her. She became my wife. We started a family, and you know, Hong Kong’s a very place uh expensive place to live without many engineering opportunities.

So I went into the field of medical device investing. So I was in medical device investing from head to toe, from cardiology to eye care to orthopedics um in the other areas. And about 10 years ago, about 15 years ago, I started investing in orthodontics with Angel And once I started investing in orthodontics and dentistry, I found that the innovation cycle is actually very long.

So, unlike these other medical device fields where there’s a spurt of innovation and you have to wait like five to seven years, for dentistry and orthodontics in particular, you actually have to keep innovating. So it’s very interesting. Uh, and very easy to invest behind, very easy to support management teams through a very long time. And you always feel the progress of the innovation every year. So I really like that.

and I just continued um finding new opportunities around orthodontics around dentistry, and as you know very well, it just kinda drew me in for the past

Alison Werner (04:06)
Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (04:07)
fifteen years. I’ve been with Angel and I’ve been doing a lot of uh venture investing in dental technologies too.

Alison Werner (04:13)
Okay, so once you became involved with Angelalign what surprised you about orthodontic treatment and the challenges that orthodontists faced once you got in there?

Dai Feng (04:25)
I actually have a very strong perspective on this question because I came from the medical device background. What really surprised me about orthodontics was just that the clinicians are really measuring themselves against very high expectations of the patient that you don’t see in other therapeutic areas, right? So it’s clinical,

Alison Werner (04:46)
very true.

Dai Feng (04:48)
it’s aesthetic, it’s emotional, it’s over a long period of time, it’s about how they feel.

When they start the treatment, it’s about how they feel two years after the treatment and everything in between, right? So orthodontists really need to measure themselves against perfection, which actually is really challenging for uh the products companies, because the products companies need to rise to the challenge of the orthodontist. And uh in many medical device fields, once you get regulatory approval, it’s kind of the end of the story for product development. You can start

marketing and selling. But in orthodontics and in many other dental fields, it’s just the start of the product optimization and improvement cycle until you get it perfect with a lot of time. So that’s the key difference for orthodontics. Would you agree? What what do you think of that? I’m curious.

Alison Werner (05:41)
Yeah. absolutely.

And I I appreciate what you said there about the fact that, you know, it’s a little bit different than medical with medical device um development, like you don’t have to worry so much about what the patient feels about it. You know, you’re not so worried about that input there and that you do need to keep keep innovating. I never thought about it that way, but it’s actually very true.

Dai Feng (06:05)
Yeah.

Alison Werner (06:06)
I know in researching this for this interview, I came across your story about asking Angel’s chief orthodontist why the company didn’t focus on simpler cosmetic cases to generate revenue. And, you know, he explained that a group of orthodontic professors were driving the product development and their focus was on a system that would treat complex cases.

That really interested me because, you know, I I kind of uh you know, I kind of would have thought the same thing. But how has that focus then shaped Angelaligner’s development and what does it mean for orthodontists using the system today?

Dai Feng (06:47)
Yeah, um that’s a very interesting development. Um so when I walked into Angel’s office in twenty twelve and started getting involved in it, what I found was that they have these very complex patient cases. And I asked why, and it turns out the founder of the company, Professor B. K. Wong, and the other founders of the company were all chairs of orthodontics in the various universities or senior professor of orthodontics.

Alison Werner (07:12)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (07:14)
So when they saw

the aligner system, they didn’t see it as a business opportunity to tap kind of the aesthetic adult population. They thought it as an opportunity to create a new therapy that can match braces or even exceed braces in certain areas. So when they um when they set the goals for R and D and the product development, first two years it was like, can you solve extraction cases?

Alison Werner (07:44)
Mm.

Dai Feng (07:44)
Which

Which which are very numerous in Asia, obviously, right? So

Alison Werner (07:47)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (07:50)
they really got the company to attack the hardest cases and got it into our high uh into our heads that the only way the Angel is gonna be successful and meaningful is by creating clinical solutions for difficult cases. And uh fifteen years since I’ve uh first met the founder and gotten involved, and over 20 years since its founding, it’s exactly

The genes of Angel and exactly what it’s doing now. So it’s affecting us to this day. Um so if you look at all of Angel’s um innovations, a lot of it, almost all of it, is focused on how to really crack the hardest cases, really, how to really differentiate the clinical results, and how to create an outstanding result for the clinician and the patient. Um and also it’s funny, a lot of companies when you have a successful launch, everybody

walks in the office, you know, slap each other on the back, give each other high fives,

Alison Werner (08:48)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (08:50)
feel really great. But Angel, it’s kind of um very strange. You you go in there, you talk to the people who just successfully launched the product, and they’re like, Well, yeah, it’s pretty good, but we got some comments that this solves seventy percent of the problems. There’s still thirty

Alison Werner (09:05)
Uh

Dai Feng (09:05)
percent of the problems it hasn’t solved. You know, when are we gonna do the next launch? When am I gonna do the upgrade? Right. So it’s there’s this sense that we can always do better.

Alison Werner (09:14)
Mm.

Dai Feng (09:14)
And I think that’s how Orthodontists feel as well, that they’re always learning and they can always do better. So it really matches that. And uh,

Alison Werner (09:19)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Dai Feng (09:22)
you know, for for actually Professor BK Wong, um, it’s a you know, he had a very strong relationship with the company and with me as well.

Alison Werner (09:31)
Mm.

Dai Feng (09:31)
He passed away four years ago in twenty twenty two, and he was um in a sick bed basically, you know, for around three years before he passed away. And even when he was on his sick bed,

He was still thinking about Angel and the innovation. He kept telling

Alison Werner (09:45)
Mm, okay.

Dai Feng (09:46)
us, okay, you guys have to do real innovation. You have to really be on the cutting edge. And he feels like we might forget. So he calls us to his sickbed, takes an A4 piece of paper, and scribbles in huge letters just in case we forget.

Alison Werner (10:01)
Ha ha

Dai Feng (10:01)
Hey you guys, you gotta make Angel great. Right? And filling a whole piece of paper, he

Alison Werner (10:05)
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Dai Feng (10:08)
put that he asked somebody put that piece of paper right on my desk so that we don’t ever forget.

Alison Werner (10:13)
Yeah.

Dai Feng (10:13)
And that’s kind of um, you know, the culture of the company.

Alison Werner (10:17)
Okay. You’ve described running a clear aligner company as bringing together treatment planning, biomechanics, software, manufacturing, and clinical support. From an orthodontist perspective, those all need to work together on every case. Talk to me about what it takes to coordinate those pieces from your end and where you see the biggest challenge as Angel grows.

Dai Feng (10:43)
Well, I invested in um all types of medical devices for ten years before

Alison Werner (10:47)
Mm. Mm.

Dai Feng (10:48)
I started in orthodontics. And I can tell you, um clear aligners and digital orthodontics generally is much more complex than any other medical device I’ve invested in. So

Alison Werner (10:58)
Hm. Okay.

Dai Feng (10:59)
it’s a real feat of um you know, of a clinical solution, bringing the technology and everything together. It’s a real feat. And

Alison Werner (11:06)
Mm. Mm.

Dai Feng (11:07)
I think the whole industry, including the orthodontists who who were part of the development, should really proud.

Should be really proud of this product and technology. Um I think the real challenges um are really twofold. What one is um, you know, orthodontics is a really patient-centric uh area, right? So while we can provide we can as we get bigger, can we still create the personalized individual solutions that each patient and each doctor want for each case, right? That’s the real challenge. We’re very determined to do that.

Each country we go to or within the region, we really try to understand the behavior, the presence pre preference of the doctor and get that into the treatment plan, get that into the product. But I think the real challenge is to maintain that uh personal personal uh therapy and personal design um as we get bigger, right? And as the industry gets bigger. I think the other aspect is just, you know, a lot of the great ideas come from uh chairside

from the orthodontist. Right. So one of the one of the biggest challenges for us and I think for the whole industry is as you get bigger, can you keep listening to the orthodontists? Can you keep listening to the clinicians and get that feedback back into the product? Can you remain humble and continue to improve the product? I think that’s a real challenge and we’re determined to do it. But it is hard as uh as entities get bigger and

Alison Werner (12:38)
Yeah.

Dai Feng (12:39)
we have to real make a real effort to maintain that culture.

Alison Werner (12:42)
Yeah, well that was actually gonna be my next question. What do you do when an orthodontist comes to your team with a case that isn’t progressing as planned? How does that experience inform what happens next for you? So I was gonna ask you to kind of walk me through how feedback from an individual practice, along with what you’re learning from cases across different markets, because you guys are in a number of markets now, how does that

change the treatment protocols or the product features or the support you provide as things progress.

Dai Feng (13:18)
Well, one of the things that we do is we create this very strong feedback loop uh with the clinician and our um treatment design technicians, our customer support staff. So that their views on their treatment plans and what they want is really integrating what they provided. And that’s why Angel’s been really industry leading and award winning in terms of its treatment plans, in terms of

how customers feel about how customized the products and services are with feedback from them. So that’s one thing that’s done very well. And I’ll give you a personal example. Um just from last week, I guess. Um,

Alison Werner (13:59)
Mm.

Dai Feng (14:00)
you know, one of the one of our big customers in New York City uh sent me an email. He says, well Dai you and Rich have been in the office and you said you wanted to be helpful. Well, I’ve got um this situation where you’re putting a prescription

uh schedule on the IPRs for the treatment. And I’m not following that because I’ve got my own plans for IPR. But when I do it, I really need to know where I did IPR before and what I need to do, where I need to do IPR next. I need a way of recording that. Can you help to get this feature into the product?

Alison Werner (14:36)
Mm.

Dai Feng (14:36)
And um I thought about it overnight. I replied to her the next day, replying to her that okay, let me talk with our R&D folks, but it sounds really sensible.

And the day after that, I talked to our product strategy people and I’ll talk to our R&D people and I found out that we’re actually developing something similar. So I replied to the doctor within two days to say, We’re developing something similar, but I really want to get you involved to, you know, talk with our product development people, see if you can guide them to the way that you want to do this, and we can help to get your ideas in there. So that’s

Alison Werner (15:04)
Mm. Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (15:10)
how we work with

you know, the doctors and um get their ideas in there. It sounds really simple. It’s not rocket science, right? But it’s

Alison Werner (15:16)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dai Feng (15:18)
actually pretty hard to get all their comments um into the company. And

Alison Werner (15:23)
Yeah.

Dai Feng (15:23)
I think if I do that as the chairman of the company, everybody that does that, right? So it’s really

Alison Werner (15:28)
Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (15:28)
become a culture of a company and we try to maintain that culture as we get bigger.

Alison Werner (15:34)
Yeah. Yeah.

You know, a key part of an aligner case is the treatment planning software. So, you know, there’s the appliance and all the innovations you guys have done there. But as treatment planning software becomes more sophisticated and even more automated, orthodontists still need to be able to apply their own clinical judgment like there. So talk to me about how Angel approaches that balance. Where should the technology help guide treatment and how do you make sure the orthodontists can carry out the treatment they’ve prescribed, like that doctor?

Yeah.

Dai Feng (16:07)
Yeah. Well, this is a topic that we talk about all the time. And the reason is because we were founded by orthodontists.

Alison Werner (16:15)
Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (16:15)
So everything we do, it’s about putting orthodontists in the middle. Whether it’s the treatment plan or the product or the software, it’s all about putting the orthodontists in the command seat. We’re very, very serious about that. It’s a philosophy that runs through all of our product development. In fact

We’d never want to actually stand between the patient and the doctor, right? We

Alison Werner (16:39)
Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (16:40)
don’t want to build a separate brand between it. We don’t want to do anything

Alison Werner (16:42)
Mm.

Dai Feng (16:43)
that dilutes that relationship. It really

Alison Werner (16:45)
Mm.

Dai Feng (16:46)
needs to be a patient orthodontist relationship.

Alison Werner (16:49)
Mm.

Dai Feng (16:49)
And uh actually even more so than that, uh what

Alison Werner (16:52)
Mm.

Dai Feng (16:53)
I found is that not only do we need to do that, but even in everything within Angel, whether it’s product development, whether it’s treatment planning, whether it’s custom customer some more support.

Alison Werner (17:04)
Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (17:04)
We

have to have orthodontists in those roles to let us know what’s the right way to treat our customers. So

Alison Werner (17:10)
Yeah.

Dai Feng (17:11)
that’s why we have eighty orthodontists in our company in

Alison Werner (17:14)
Mm.

Dai Feng (17:14)
various decision making roles or co-decision making roles to make sure that we can really empathize with the orthodontists and put them in the middle of the technology so that they are controlling the technology.

Alison Werner (17:27)
Mm. Okay. You you’ve talked before about the importance of Angel’s values and culture. For an orthodontist treating patients and running a practice, what should that look like in their day-to-day interactions with the company? Can you give me an example of how those values guide the way your team responds to the practice’s needs? You’ve kind of talked about it, but can you say a little bit more?

Dai Feng (17:49)
well I think there are three aspects, right? First of all, with each case that comes in, we’re really uh interacting with the orthodontist very frequently and supporting them. We have a terrific customer support organization, terrific clinical support to make sure that we get each case right with each orthodontist. But more than that, I remember just last week I was in Houston and I was sitting down with a sales rep there.

And we talked about the cases, but more than that, she talked me to the fact that there’s a real stasis in the growth of the ortho market in some parts of Texas. And she was asking me, you know, if it was okay if she spent some time with her customers to help with their operations, to help them, you know, generate more leads, to help them convert better in the office. And I said, That’s great. That’s terrific, if you can do that. So we go really go beyond.

just the patient case to really thinking about um orthodontists as business partners and helping them there. And I think even beyond that, I mean, also last week, um, you know, there’s a husband and wife pair in North America where the wife runs the whole clinic and she always gives me great advice about how clinic is run and teaching me about it and how marketing is done. And then she was mentioning to me that her daughter has a serious form of cancer.

And she was asking me if um I knew any anybody who who are real really experts in this area. I searched around, I found the expert for her, right? I set her up to to speak with uh the expert. I don’t know if she’ll follow up with that, but that’s the thing that we think about our customers. Like we think about our customers not just as the other side of a transaction. We think of them as part of our family, part of the Angel family. That’s the relationship that we want with our.

customers and that’s the relationship

Alison Werner (19:46)
Yeah.

Dai Feng (19:47)
that we have.

Alison Werner (19:47)
Yeah. Well, I was gonna ask you about can I ask you about that because you know, Angel’s expanded internationally. You guys started in the Chinese market, you have a twenty year history there, if I’m correct. And so now you’re in the US market, the North American market. So talk to me about how the company has established those local teams and support systems in new markets like North America and how Orthodontists should expect

those orthodontists and their staff should expect those relationships to develop and the support they can see they can e expect.

Dai Feng (20:24)
So North America, amongst all of our regions in the world, we’ve hired some of the most experienced orthodontic service sales and orthodontic industry personnel. Just the

Alison Werner (20:35)
Mm.

Dai Feng (20:35)
most experienced. People who have been in the industry for a long time, people who really care about uh their customers, people who know that they identify with industry as being part of the industry and never leaving the industry, right? As you know, um

Alison Werner (20:49)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dai Feng (20:51)
people are

really, really passionate about this industry. So they’re so knowledgeable that, you know, many times I I we we try to think of ways to kind of direct the business, direct the customer service. And after we talk with our own folks, we found out they know what to do. Right?

Alison Werner (21:07)
Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (21:08)
They know exactly what to do. They have the best interest of their customers in mind. And they’re telling the whole organization how we should behave to serve our customers better. So I think one of the things we do is just kind of

Get out of the way.

Alison Werner (21:22)
Mm.

Dai Feng (21:23)
Provide full support to the really experienced team we have on the ground in North America and really just really support them, provide them what they need. And that’s gonna provide the best customer service in North America because we have this great team in place.

Alison Werner (21:37)
Yeah. Where do things stand with the US manufacturing facility and what will Orthodontist here see in terms of production, delivery, or even turnaround times once that’s up and running?

Dai Feng (21:51)
So the new our new facility’s in Wisconsin.

Alison Werner (21:53)
Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (21:54)
Um it’s about half an hour from Milwaukee and it’s going on very smoothly. Uh it’s being built out um on schedule and

Alison Werner (22:04)
Mm.

Dai Feng (22:04)
we plan to be operational very soon in the first quarter of twenty twenty seven.

Alison Werner (22:09)
okay.

Dai Feng (22:10)
And um you know it’ll come online gradually and

Alison Werner (22:13)
Mm.

Dai Feng (22:14)
uh doctors who prefer some products being made in the US will

Alison Werner (22:19)
Mm.

Dai Feng (22:19)
get supplied there.

Doctors prefer faster delivery would get supply there. And um it’s also a place that uh, you know, we can showcase how aligners are manufactured and get doctors to really understand that process because they all have a lot of great views on how to actually optimize it more and get more innovation into the manufacturing process. So we’re looking forward to that. And obviously it’s just great to be, you know, creating some good paying jobs in Wisconsin as well.

Alison Werner (22:49)
Okay, okay. Um Angel has been involved in patent litigation as it expands internationally. Um so for orthodontists who are using the system or considering it, what should they understand about how you’re managing those challenges and still supporting continuity of care?

Dai Feng (23:10)
So obviously you know a lot about the litigious nature of the aligner industry. It’s been getting going on for 30 years.

Alison Werner (23:15)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (23:18)
So when Angel

went into this industry twenty-four years ago, it knew exactly what was getting into. And

Alison Werner (23:25)
Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (23:25)
everything it launched was so careful in terms of understanding the legal landscape because this has been such a litigious industry for such a long time. And Angel has been just really, really methodical. And I was part of that process of being methodical.

And really understanding everything on the legal and um IP front. You

Alison Werner (23:43)
Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (23:44)
know, this type of litigious strategy generally I think could be effective if you know the startup is a small company or it’s a one-trick pony without much innovation. But

Alison Werner (23:55)
Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (23:55)
for Angel, which is a billion-dollar company, and innovating all the time, can constantly, it doesn’t really impact us at all. So customers should have.

No concerns whatsoever about business continuity in the US. Angel’s gonna be a rock solid partner for

Alison Werner (24:13)
Yeah.

Dai Feng (24:13)
North American customers because we’re constantly innovating and they’ll

Alison Werner (24:17)
Mm.

Dai Feng (24:17)
continue to see that innovation.

Alison Werner (24:20)
Okay. So Angel has reported substantial growth over the past year. So as the company grows, how are you deciding where to invest next? Like what clinical challenges or everyday practice needs are guiding those decisions? And what should orthodontists expect to see as a result?

Dai Feng (24:41)
well there are three areas that Angel is investing and

Alison Werner (24:44)
Mm.

Dai Feng (24:44)
I’ll also share with you what I’m focused on personally.

Alison Werner (24:47)
Yeah.

Dai Feng (24:47)
The three areas is obviously the most important is clinical outcomes, uh indications, and clinical performance. That’s the main area that Angel’s

Alison Werner (24:56)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (24:57)
um investing in because of its orthodontic founder roots. The

Alison Werner (25:02)
Mm.

Dai Feng (25:02)
second is just um workflow efficiency and making things easier for the doctor.

Alison Werner (25:07)
Mm.

Dai Feng (25:08)
And the third part is just making the whole supply chain rock solid, expanding the supply chain to make sure that, you know, it’s really rock solid and business continuity can be improved all around the world.

Alison Werner (25:19)
Mm-hmm.

Dai Feng (25:19)
What I’m personally um focused on is actually another matter. It’s just maintaining that culture, right? I think culture beats everything in orthodontics. So I personally really want to maintain that culture of listening to orthodontists, that culture of continuous improvement. Um

that culture of continue to provide a very personalized service even as we get larger. And those are the things that I think will really allow Angel to shine and work well with Orthodontists continuously as it gets bigger.

Alison Werner (25:52)
curious now you’ve been in this the orthodontic industry now for fifteen years fifteen years okay I know you’re like

Dai Feng (25:57)
Fifteen years that I’ve been with Angel. Yep.

Alison Werner (25:59)
a year or two off from me what’s what’s most

Dai Feng (26:01)
That’s right, yeah.

Alison Werner (26:05)
surprised you about the industry and what’s what are you looking forward to now or what excites you about what’s coming in the industry?

Dai Feng (26:17)
Well, I think first of all, um there are two things that really surprise me. The first thing would be just the culture of the industry, right? You, me, our sales employees, um, the employees of all of our competitors. They’re so naturally dedicated to the industry, to clinical excellence, to getting the clinics to run well into the customers. And I think the organizations, all of the organizations just benefit

From that culture. People are so passionate about what they do in our industry. And once people come in, they can’t leave because they love it. So that’s the first thing that I think is very surprising. You don’t see that in any other industry.

Alison Werner (26:55)
Yeah. Mm.

Dai Feng (26:58)
Yeah. And and it’s a very, you know, positive culture. I think the second part is just the diversity of the technology that comes into orthodontics, right? You have a lot of um everything on the hardware side, material science side, right? And

software side, clinical solutions side, customer service side, education side. So it’s really um a very diverse range of of technologies, of um, of organizations of core competencies that needs to be melded together to reach that perfection that orthodontists want. So that’s really surprising. I think that really surpasses um the diversity of many other medical device industries. And that

That is really I think the source of all this innovation that’s gonna continue to come out of orthodontics.

Alison Werner (27:51)
Mm.

Dai Feng (27:51)
And I think the innovation that’s gonna come out of orthodontics will be an example for the entire medical device industry.

Alison Werner (27:58)
Interesting. Okay. All right. Well, we’re gonna leave it there. Thank you so much for your time, Dai I really appreciate getting to talk to you.

Dai Feng (28:06)
Absolutely. And you have to let me interview you next time. About your seventeen years of experience and what

Alison Werner (28:09)
Oh God.

Dai Feng (28:13)
you’ve seen and your experience there.

Alison Werner (28:17)
We’ll see about that. But yeah, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Dai Feng (28:22)
Absolutely.