Good morning. It’s unfortunate that Ireland narrowly missed qualifying for the World Cup this year because they would have surely been a favorite of the dentistry community. After all, their head coach, Heimir Hallgrímsson, is a qualified (and still occasionally practicing) dentist who is outspoken in his love for the profession.

While dentistry has taken a backseat to soccer these days, Hallgrímsson has said that he still enjoys pulling the odd tooth: “It’s a good way to relax.”

Inside this issue:

- Signs of a thaw in dental dealmaking
- What GLP-1s mean for dentistry

⏰ Your reading time today: 6 minutes 38 seconds

🏆 Enjoy your coffee break with Word of Mouth, a dental-themed word game inspired by Wordle.

MARKETS

📈 3D Systems ($DDD) – 3.26 | +0.100 (3.16%)
📉 Align Technology ($ALGN) – 173.76 | -4.12 (2.32%)
📉 Colgate-Palmolive ($CL) – 88.67 | -1.59 (1.77%)
📉 Dentsply Sirona ($XRAY) – 10.15 | -0.040 (0.39%)
📈 Envista Holdings ($NVST) – 25.51 | +0.48 (1.92%)
📉 Henry Schein ($HSIC) – 78.67 | -3.02 (3.70%)
📈 Park Dental Partners ($PARK) – 18.15 | +0.15 (0.83%)
📈 Straumann Holding ($STMN) – CHF 105.35 | +11.59 (12.36%)
📉 Weave Communications ($WEAV) – 5.16 | -0.48 (8.51%)

Stock data reflects market close as of the last day of trading, showing changes over the past five trading days.

THE DRILL DOWN

🦷 New data shows nearly 13,000 dental professionals needed to fill U.S. shortage areas, with 76 million Americans currently living in dental professional shortage areas, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration—a jump from 10,743 practitioners needed just six months ago. Don’t tuck those “help wanted” signs into storage just yet.

💰 General dentist pay dipped in 2025 for the first time in years, slipping from $196,100 to $191,350 after four consecutive years of growth, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

🧠 Only 3% of Americans associate oral health with overall well-being, despite 76% saying they care about their oral health, according to a P&G and American Academy of Family Physicians survey. The mouth-body connection has a marketing problem.

🏛️ ADA urges Congress to require dental insurers to provide real-time, patient-specific cost information by CDT code, pushing back against hospital-style fee transparency requirements it says would mislead patients on actual out-of-pocket costs.

📊 A Harvard analysis finds Medicaid eligibility changes could cost $86.5 million in dental care, projecting 480,000 children per year losing coverage and 95,799 additional cases of tooth decay over a decade.

🌊 Plurality of Americans favor community water fluoridation, according to a new Annenberg Public Policy Center poll, with 43% in support and 26% opposed, though opposition rises to 41% among self-identified supporters of the MAHA movement.

✅ ADA's Medicaid pilot program shows dentist participation can grow with the right incentives, with a six-state initiative launched in 2023 finding that reimbursement increases work best when paired with provider outreach and education. 

🏆 ADSO honors leaders in dentistry at its summit last week, including the Planet DDS Artemis AI Team with the Innovation Award, Dr. Mary Pham, CEO of Lollipop Dental, with the Service Award, and Justin Jory, founder & CEO of Lightwave Dental, with the Presidential Award.

🎓 Aspen Dental launches "Aligned With Aspen Dental," a new program recognizing newly graduated hygienists joining its network, part of an effort to increase its accessible hiring pool.

🗺️ Michigan's Senate Health Policy Committee advances a bill package to create a state-based dental insurance exchange, with lawmakers eyeing exchange revenue to fund outreach in underinsured communities.

📜 Rhode Island Senate passes a bill creating a licensure pathway for foreign-trained dentists and hygienists, requiring graduates to pass a state board exam and practice under direct supervision for six months before becoming eligible for general supervision.

INDUSTRY

Midway through 2026, the M&A thaw in dental is real … for some

Is there a better month than June? The days are long, the weather is gorgeous, we get championship hockey and basketball, the World Cup is on—heck, even the chilly dental dealmaking market looks like it may be starting to thaw.

Driving the news: Despite M&A activity in healthcare services slowing overall, dentistry has actually been a (relatively) hot space, according to recent data from PitchBook. 

• Healthcare services private-equity deal count fell 16% year over year in the first quarter of 2026 and deal value dropped 23.3%, but PitchBook flagged dental among the few subsegments that kept up activity even as the broader market cooled.
  

• Another report published by TUSK Practice Sales also found strength in dental. According to its survey of buyers, 69% of DSOs expect to step up acquisitions this year even as the supply of sellable practices tightens, and 78% anticipate a recapitalization within 12 to 36 months.

Yes, but: The thaw isn't reaching everyone. Two of the country's largest DSOs spent this spring restructuring under their lenders.

• Dental Care Alliance closed a deal earlier this month that cut more than $1.1 billion in funded debt, brought in $95 million of new capital, and pushed maturities to 2031.
  

• Weeks earlier, Blackstone and KKR assumed control of Affordable Care by slashing about 70% of a $1.4 billion private-credit load and wiping out existing equity.

What it means: The cheap-money era that fueled the last boom is over. Buyers are back but far more disciplined—paying multiples that have come back to Earth from pandemic-era highs—while the operators who piled on cheap, floating-rate debt are the ones now getting restructured.

• Dykema's Brian Colao estimates that multiples on larger deals have dropped from the 13–16x of 2021 to roughly 9.5–10.5x today, with solo practices back near 5x after a brief run at 7x.
  

• "[Buyers are] not just going to say, 'Oh, this is a dental deal, let's overpay and throw money at it.' They're being very cautious, very thorough in their diligence—a lot more thorough than they ever were before," said Colao.

What you can do: Focus on the levers you control (and that are valuable for the business anyway), namely same-store growth, higher case acceptance, and leaner operations driven by better technology. 

Bottom line: The thaw is real, but 2026 is sorting DSOs into those positioned to capture some of the dry powder waiting on the sidelines and those scrambling to survive their own balance sheets. The deals under LOI now should start closing in the back half, and a stronger 2027 looks plausible, especially if the macro environment improves and interest rates start easing.

Share this article: https://www.themorninggrind.com/p/midway-through-2026-the-m-a-thaw-in-dental-is-real-for-some

BUSINESS BITES

👔 Notable leadership changes: Dentsply Sirona names John Fortson as its Chief Financial Officer, Andrew Sousa joins Specialty1 Partners as VP of Business Development, and Kevin Conroy will succeed C. Raymond Larkin, Jr. as Chairman of the Board for Align Technology.

📈 Deals and de novos: North Pittsburgh Oral Surgery opens a fifth location in Pittsburgh.

🤝 Gen4, Modis, and SGA Dental Partners merge into one organization, uniting the three Thurston Group-backed DSOs under the SGA Dental Partners brand, with CEO Jordan DiNola leading a combined network of over 250 locations and 500 dentists across 26 states.

🌏 Mitsui Chemicals announces plans to acquire Ultradent Products, part of a push by the Japan-based firm to expand its global dental footprint and grow its international healthcare business. 

💸 SPG Dental Implant Centers secures new credit facilities with KeyBank, using the deal to refinance existing debt at improved terms and fuel expansion of its nearly 50-office, 26-state network.

CLINICAL

The weight-loss drug boom hits dentistry

You would expect the GLP-1 weight loss drug boom to shake up the food and grocery industry, but its ripple effects are also being felt across more surprising sectors, from cosmetics to gyms to airlines—and even dentistry. 

What happened: Around one in eight U.S. adults is taking a GLP-1 drug, like Ozempic and Zepbound, for weight loss, a seismic shift in the pharmaceutical landscape that’s now reshaping how dental practices operate. 

• As an example of how the industry is starting to grapple with this shift, the American Dental Association (ADA) just made GLP-1 status a standard intake question, adding a question asking whether patients have taken a GLP-1 receptor agonist.

What you need to know: One of the primary impacts on how dentists operate—and why the ADA has made GLP-1 use a standard intake question—is its potential to affect sedation. GLP-1s slow gastric emptying, so a patient can show up with food still in the stomach despite following fasting instructions. For moderate or deep sedation, oral surgery, or general anesthesia, patients using GLP-1s without their clinician’s knowledge can become a safety issue.

• Sedation isn’t the only factor to consider, either. The ADA flags possible slowed tooth movement in adult ortho cases and bone-density questions around implants.
  

• The chair of the ADA's Council on Dental Practice says xerostomia, or dry mouth, is the most common oral change these drugs cause, and up to 24% of users report vomiting, which bathes teeth in stomach acid, both side effects that can increase decay and cavity risk.

Yes, but: It’s still early days in the GLP-1 drug boom, and peer-reviewed, controlled studies on oral health effects are still relatively thin. There’s even some evidence that these drugs are associated with improved periodontal and peri-implant health in diabetic patients.

What you can do: The number of your patients on GLP-1s is only likely to grow—current use has doubled in 18 months and shows no signs of leveling off. If you haven’t already, now is the right time to systematize a response: 

• Put GLP-1s on the intake form. The ADA's updated form does it; if you run your own, add the question and have staff confirm it at every visit.
  

• Build a GLP-1 flag into your sedation workflow. Define a clear path for adjusting treatment when needed, ideally coordinated with the prescribing physician.
  

• Train the front desk to ask and to explain why. Patients are less likely to volunteer the information if they don't know it matters.
  

• Implement a dry-mouth protocol. That could include hydration coaching, fluoride, and tighter recall intervals for affected patients.
  

• Flag status in ortho and implant planning where bone and tooth movement are in play.

And one more thing to watch: Rapid weight loss driven by GLP-1s has another visible side effect—facial volume loss, or "Ozempic face"—that’s already spawning a cash-pay opportunity some dental practices are chasing, like Soul Dental in NYC (offering cosmetic injectables alongside its dental work) and Smile For Life Dental in Illinois (operating a full in-house medical spa with Botox and facials). It may not be relevant to your organization today, but it’s an emerging industry trend worth keeping an eye on.

Share this article: https://www.themorninggrind.com/p/the-weight-loss-drug-boom-hits-dentistry

CLINICAL NOTES

⏱️ How long patients brush matters more than how they brush, with a study finding that area-specific brushing duration (at least 5 seconds on a given site) was the factor most strongly associated with post-brushing plaque levels. In this case, quantity does beat quality.

🩹 A microneedle patch may be the breakthrough oral ulcer treatment clinicians have been waiting for, with researchers developing a treatment that penetrates the oral mucosa to deliver therapeutics directly to affected tissue, significantly speeding healing and reducing inflammation in animal models.

👑 Crown lengthening before crown placement significantly improves long-term tooth survival, with a study finding that structurally compromised teeth treated with crown restorations following the procedure achieved high long-term survival rates.

BEYOND THE CUSP

• Canada has a new conference dedicated to the business of dentistry coming in November.
  

• What did dental care look like 250 years ago?
  

• Scientists found traces of the plague dating back 5,500 years, the earliest known evidence of the disease.
  

• Researchers at the University of Washington are testing oral bacteria transplants to cure chronic halitosis.