Anaheim, Calif. — Lubrizol Corp. is expanding its health-care product offerings, and investing $15 million in the effort, the Wickliffe, Ohio company said Feb. 10 at the Medical Design and Manufacturing West trade show and conference in Anaheim.
Expanding Lubrizol LifeSciences offerings has in part been made possible with the recent acquisition of Vesta Inc. and Partical Sciences whose capabilities are turning the company's health-care business into the “polymer-based drug delivery company” of the future, company reps said at the show.
“We're introducing hole punching, printing, flaring, bonding and more,” said Apur Lathiya, senior business development manager for medical devices. Additional new offerings also include variable durometer braided shafts, a step up from the extrusion with some braiding over limited types of liners it had already been doing.
Vesta Inc. was an established 42-year-old maker of catheters and tubing based on silicone and thermoplastics when Lubrizol acquired it in August 2014. Three months later, the company added Particle Sciences Inc. to the family. PSI, based in Bethlehem, Penn., is a drug development company offering contract formulation, analytics and manufacturing.
Lubrizol's recent moves are on-trend for plastics in the medical market, where many companies are moving to quickly to shorten the supply chain and offer more to health care OEMs from one company they already trust.
“We're really trying to establish ourselves as the go-to company for medical OEMs, a one-stop shop,” said Uwe Winzen, Lubrizol LifeSciences global business manager. “We're just following what the market it telling us in terms of where is the value and what are our customers telling us. And for us, it makes total sense. We're backwards integrated in the TPU resins on the thermoplastics with the acquisition of Vesta and now the $15 million build-out that we're doing with them.”
The $15 million global investment in the expanded capabilities began in late 2015 and is largely aimed at capital purchases and improvements around the world for the $7 billion a year Berkshire Hathaway-owned business, according to a company press release.
The new Lubrizol logo and branding, also introduced at the MD&M West show, reflects the synergies brought on by acquisition and the new position as a one-stop shop, Winzen said, incorporating the heritage business of Lubrizol, formulation with PSI and manufacturing in silicone and TPE with Vesta
“We have the polymer, we have the formulation and we have the manufacturing,” he said. “It's all right here.”