Rochester, N.Y.-based medical injection molder Atalys LLC has acquired Ottoville, Ohio-based contract manufacturer Schnipke Engraving Co. LLC to add capacity, technical capabilities and geographic reach.
Founded in 1967, Schnipke produces complex, tight-tolerance components for the medical, industrial and consumer markets at its headquarters site and another facility in Tucson, Ariz. The company had been certified Women Owned Business since 2002 but it no longer applies.
Now privately held, Schnipke deepens Atalys' core competencies related to tooling, processing and automated components assembly, company officials said.
Schnipke has about 150 employees and everyone will be retained as Atalys adds expertise in parts for minimally invasive and robotic assisted surgery as well as markets for instruments, drug delivery and surgical access, such as cannulas and components for laparoscopic procedures, according to John Hoskins, chief commercial officer and chief technology officer for Atalys.
"This is an incredible team of people with an incredible legacy that we're bringing into the Atalys family to build on the legacy started there. We've expanded a highly technical, highly skilled workforce and created a bigger, more capable team with the acquisition," Hoskins said in a phone interview.
Atalys holds the No. 50 spot among the largest injection molders in North America with estimated sales of $200 million while Schnipke ranks No. 190 with estimated sales of $35 million, according to Plastics News' latest ranking.
Schnipke can design tools within tolerances of +/-0.001 of an inch and as small as 0.02 grams in weight, the company website says.
"Like Atalys, this has always been a technology-, engineering-driven company doing very difficult things. Leonard Schnipke, the founder, had a great saying. The impossible we do right away, miracles take a bit longer. That spirit is really the underlying spirit of Atalys as a group today," Hoskins said.
The acquisition also will give Atalys a stronger presence in the markets for minimally invasive surgery (MIS) and robotic surgery.
"MIS and robotic surgery, that's where we're heading, and beyond that we're looking at the biopharma and pharma side," Hoskins said. "We can participate in the surgical and non-invasive therapies moving forward and have a balanced organization to support across all areas that improve patient care and outcomes. Our goal is to deliver the very best lifesaving products to the partners we serve, who in turn serve hundreds of millions of patients every day. We probably touch one person every minute. That's the commitment we have."
The acquired company is known for building tools in-house and designing molds for the medical device industry's stringent requirements for precision at extremely tight tolerances, according to Atalys President and CEO Vinc Ellerbrock.
"Our acquisition of Schnipke was driven by a focused strategy to deepen our capabilities, capacity, and technical superiority across the entire manufacturing process for medical device components," Ellerbrock said in a news release. "The addition of Schnipke adds two manufacturing sites for scalable growth, broadens our geographic presence and reach, enables us to serve a wider array of customers, and significantly augments our technical capabilities to best serve those customers."
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The acquired site in Ottoville has three buildings on its campus and is sometimes identified as being in Cloverdale.
Atalys, formerly EG Medical, was acquired by Dunes Point Capital LP in 2022.
In February, Atalys announced it was expanding in the Dominican Republic with addition of a new 32,000-square-foot facility adjacent to the current 15,000-square-foot site in Santo Domingo, which offers injection molding and clean room molding.
Atalys also has a manufacturing plant in Asheboro, N.C., and an engineering division that offers tooling design, mold making, micro-tool building and machining in Rochester.