Keeping up with demand, changing medical markets

Plastics companies serving the medical market are growing to meet booming demand from customers looking to mitigate risk as they start new projects with sustainability efforts in mind.

Since the pandemic, Greensboro, N.C.-based Core Technology Molding Corp. has seen sales growth of 300 percent, President and CEO Geoff Foster told Plastics News. The company's production has shifted from 5 percent biopharmaceutical supply to 60 percent. In the last few years, Core Tech has doubled its clean room capacity with a second Class 10,000 clean room and new Class 1,000 ISO 6 clean room for assembly, Foster said.

The company now has almost 50 employees, about a 25 percent growth in headcount since the pandemic started, he added. The company has also invested about $2 million in four new machines and four new robots to meet both medical and automotive demand. "That's what's really helped us be competitive and grow in the medical device area," Foster said. "It's really grown exponentially."

Demand is also rising due to reshoring, Foster said: "A lot of these OEMs are pulling existing business from China, other low-cost producing countries. They don't want their suppliers in some of these countries anymore."

Core Tech has also seen new business from customers "pulling out of Russia" because of the war in Ukraine, Foster said.

The company has worked closely with its resin suppliers, which are within a three-hour radius from Core's headquarters, he said.

"We're not putting resin or components on a ship and waiting eight to 10 weeks," he said. "That has really helped us impact the bottom line. … That's because of the efficiencies, the robotics, localization of suppliers, so that shipping cost has been reduced … by not shipping 5,000 miles away; we're shipping 150 miles away."

Last year, Core Tech was awarded an almost $3 million economic development grant, which it will use to add on to its facility, breaking ground in April 2023, he added.

Core Tech expects to double that 300 percent growth in 2023 due to existing biopharma purchase orders for the next 12-18 months, he said. Having "orders out [from] the middle of [2023] until 2024 … really helps with our planning," Foster said. "So I can look at headcount, I can look at raw materials, I can look at labor [and machine hours].

"We're going to make 100 million plunger rods this year just for vaccines," he said. "Our customers are focused. They're putting a lot of emphasis on COVID for good reason. But the old diseases have not gone away. We're working on chickenpox, measles, mumps, rubella. One big one now is HPV. … We're focused on some of these older vaccines as well."

Core Tech also expects demand to rise in reusable packaging for pharmaceutical drugs and devices, he added.

Formerra LLC, formerly Avient Corp.'s resin distribution unit, has seen rising interest from customers in engaging with the company digitally and designing for sustainability, Kelly Wessner, sales director of key accounts, told PN at MD&M West in Anaheim, Calif.

"Now as Formerra, our ability to go faster down that [digital] path is exciting," Wessner said.

The company is working with multiple customers on designing devices out of a single material for greater recyclability, using medical-grade materials with lower carbon footprints and creating more sustainable device packaging.

"It's interesting where health care has been falling in the sustainability effort. It's certainly not the leading market," Wessner said.

Years ago, customers said sustainability efforts weren't on their radar due to potential safety risks from recycled materials, among other concerns, she said. Within the last two years, customers have been "seriously thinking about [sustainability]," setting goals and needing help from suppliers and distributors, she said. "That is really a big shift."

The safest place for medical device and pharmaceutical companies to start their sustainability goals is the impact of their manufacturing footprint, Wessner said. "There is a role to play as a resin supplier in that, but when they're looking at water usage and emissions, our sphere of influence is a bit limited."

Customers are starting to ask which materials have the most favorable carbon footprint when considering options for applications, she said. "It's not necessarily bio-based or recycled material, but rather looking at carbon footprint."

Products like packaging of medical devices and equipment that have no skin contact are a "low-hanging fruit" suppliers can start their sustainability journey with, she added. "It's not easy because … there's a lot of testing that has to go into that," Wessner said. "But it's … still medical grade and positioning those appropriately."

The pandemic brought "accelerated" demand in personal blood pressure and glucose monitoring, and self-administration drug delivery devices, she said. "We were seeing that trend before COVID. … People became very comfortable with it. Now people want to have ownership of their care."

Picking the right materials for products like self-administered drug delivery devices that go straight to the consumer "gets complicated," Wessner said. "You need the material knowledge to get the right chemical compatibility, the right durability, the right lubricity because you have moving parts. There's a range of engineering materials to commodity all combined."

Materials supplier Covestro is helping customers to meet sustainability targets, Emily Shaffer, healthcare marketing manager for the Americas at Covestro, told PN. It offers customers materials with lower carbon footprints and circular waste, biomass "drop-in" materials that can be used to replace fossil feedstocks.

The company is also working on solutions for both closed- and open-loop recycling, since some medical devices will always need virgin feedstocks, Shaffer said.

Covestro is seeing innovation and growth in drug delivery, self-injection and wearables, Shaffer added. "We're seeing the surgical procedures returning back to normal levels. … We're seeing growth for a lot of surgical devices," she said. "There's brand recognition now as well.

"In the past you had people going to hospitals or different point of care facilities and you get what you get. They use a blood pressure monitor on you, and it is what it is. Now, people are making those decisions," she said.

"You even see a shift in advertising, trying to direct that to the consumer instead of just to the hospital systems," Wessner added. "I could see [the health care industry participating more in sustainable efforts] translating to what the consumer is seeking as well."

While supply chain disruptions have subsided since the "crisis mode" amid the pandemic, risk mitigation is still "critical" for the health care market, Wessner said. "Now, companies are rightsizing their inventories."

Formerra leverages its warehousing and inventory management to establish minimum and maximum inventory levels for its customers following panic-buying in 2021 and early 2022 that has now subsided, Wessner said. The distributor's team works with OEMs and contract manufacturers that "have full design responsibility," Wessner said, to help with development and establish "dual-path specification of materials."

"We work upfront to really understand what risk mitigation means to the customer because it can vary widely. … Sometimes it means I need to have more than one material approved to form my application so that if one goes down, I have a backup ready to go," she said. Having "multiple solutions positioned and ultimately [FDA] approved, we can switch back and forth."

Sweden-based Trelleborg AB moved to expand its North American footprint with the acquisition of Minnesota Rubber and Plastics last year. The deal added new capabilities for Trelleborg, including custom material formulation, Kevin Ehlert, mergers and acquisitions director, told PN at MD&M West.

Minnesota Rubber's innovation center in Plymouth, Minn., complements Trelleborg Healthcare's Delano, Minn.-based rapid development center, which allows customers to work with Trelleborg's technical teams, Ehlert said.

Trelleborg is expanding its biopharma facility in Malta to meet demand in the European market, starting with distribution, he said.

The company also acquired Wisconsin medical molder EirMed LLC last year to add medical device assembly experience and expand capabilities and capacity in thermoplastics, Trelleborg said at the time.

"Customers are always looking for suppliers that can solve problems," he said. "It's more than just making a part. … Being able to solve more customer challenges under one roof … is a value add to our existing customer base."

That partnership is important, Ehlert said, as medical devices get "smaller and smarter" through increased research and development over the last few years. Miniaturization, wearables and "using data to give a better therapeutic outcome" are all "key trends" that are challenging both from an engineering or manufacturing perspective, he said.

"It takes a deep knowledge of the materials of how the products are manufactured," Ehlert said.

After a "wild ride" for diagnostics amid the pandemic, Trelleborg is expecting a "stable" 2023, he said. "I'm not going to say the supply chain issues are fixed, but they're starting to normalize.

"Telehealth isn't going away. By default, wearables aren't going away; those are evolving very rapidly away from the hospital treatment," he said. "There [are] some regulatory constraints on the speed that they can develop. But we'll see more and more."

Trelleborg is also investing in sustainability efforts like carbon footprint reductions, product life cycles, alternate feedstock sources and renewable energy like solar panels, he said.

"I think the industry overall is really just still trying to pave a path," Ehlert said. "Starting with the low-hanging fruit … making a big impact that way and then continuing down our operations to use data to make the right decisions to change."

"A lot of customers like going to one entity," Jon Whitney, vice president of business development at Mack Molding Co., told PN. "We can get them prototypes [through Mack Prototype] while [Mack Molding is] making tools."

Mack is seeing high inbound leads from the medical market, Whitney said. Customers are ready with specific projects and timelines.

"Time to market is critical right now," Whitney said. "It always has been, but there's a larger focus. … We have to get to market faster, and [customers] don't have enough resources to support on their end. … With our engineering team, our prototyping capabilities, we're able to help them early on and partner with them through full-scale manufacturing."