For nearly 30 years, OPRO has built its reputation on one thing: making some of the safest, most trusted mouthguards in sport. Founded in 1997 by dentist Dr Anthony Lovat, the company became the gold standard in custom-fit protection, supplying everyone from school rugby teams to elite athletes and governing bodies around the world.
But success created a problem.
The traditional custom-fit process, dental impressions, lab manufacturing and long lead times, was becoming increasingly difficult to scale. Schools faced growing admin headaches. Parents dreaded impression day. Brexit made staffing harder. COVID effectively shut the whole system down overnight.
So OPRO asked a bold question:
What if you could create a dentist level mouthguard instantly, without a dentist?
The answer became the Instant Custom-Fit.
Rather than relying on dental impressions and plaster models, OPRO developed a patented system that allows the mouthguard to mould directly inside the wearer’s mouth in minutes.
At the heart of the innovation are two patented technologies:
• Flexible internal fins that soften and mould precisely around teeth and gums
• A patented impression tray that harnesses the power of the jaw to create an ultra accurate fit
The science behind it is surprisingly simple. A traditional dental thermoforming machine applies around 60 PSI of pressure. The human jaw can exert more than 120 PSI.
In other words, the wearer’s own jaw pressure creates a fit no lab machine can replicate.
The result is a mouthguard that delivers the retention, comfort and protection of a traditional custom fit, but without the wait, the appointments, the hassle and at a fraction of the price.
And the market responded quickly.
Since launch, Instant Custom-Fit unit sales have grown from fewer than 20,000 per year to more than 100,000 annually, an increase of over 500% in just five years.
The innovation didn’t just create a new product. It transformed the business.
OPRO invested heavily in robotics and automation, introducing collaborative robots to trim, polish and finish mouthguards with more than 99% precision. Manufacturing became faster, more scalable and more sustainable, while unit production costs fell significantly as volumes increased.
The impact of the innovation has now been recognised with a King’s Award for Enterprise for Innovation, one of the UK’s most prestigious business honours.
For schools and clubs, the impact was immediate. No more organising dental visits. No disruption to the school day. No nervous children waiting for impressions.
For players, it meant access to elite level protection from anywhere in the world.
And for OPRO, it opened the door to major direct to consumer growth internationally, particularly in the USA, where demand for high performance sports protection continues to rise.
Today, OPRO supplies more than 50 sporting organisations worldwide and has manufactured over 15 million mouthguards across both custom fit and self-fit categories. But the company sees Instant Custom-Fit as something bigger than just another product launch.
It’s the next chapter in the evolution of sports protection.
A product born from decades of dental expertise, reimagined for a faster, more accessible and more sustainable future.
Or, as OPRO puts it internally:
“Custom Fit was the best… until the development of the Instant Custom-Fit.”
