StatLab Medical Products, a medical diagnostic equipment supplier, is expanding with a new manufacturing facility in Arlington, Texas, to produce histology cassettes.
The new facility began operations in early February, Jessica Baer, vice president of global marketing at StatLab told Plastics News in an email.
The "multi-million dollar investment" will add to StatLab's employee team "as capacity is increased," Baer said. "We'll also be adding blow molding to the existing injection molding capabilities."
"As we expand sales of PiSmart Cassette printers here in the U.S. market, giving customers confidence in a readily-available supply of the consumable cassettes used with the printer is imperative," Dae Hong, StatLab CEO, said in Feb 12 news release.
StatLab of McKinney, Texas, acquired United Kingdom-based injection molder CellPath Ltd. in 2022, which manufactures histology supplies. The deal "served as a catalyst for this significant capability expansion," the release said.
"None of this would have been possible without the help of our Newtown, Wales, operational and technical teams to support this key capability expansion," Hong added. "We are grateful for their collaboration and partnership to build on their experience spanning more than 30 years with high-quality precision injection molding.
The 35,000-square-foot facility has "room for future expansion," the release said.
StatLab plans to expand capabilities at the plant with blow molding and glass slide manufacturing capacity and expand its portfolio with a "wide variety of styles," it said, of the cassette laboratory components that are "compatible" with printers and "manual use."
The on-site injection molding capabilities will "support not only histology cassette manufacturing but also additional components and packaging materials to further reduce the carbon footprint of products [and] reduce costs," the release added.
StatLab Medical Products supplies a portfolio of consumables and labeling and tracking equipment for anatomic pathology laboratories from six manufacturing sites in the U.S., the U.K. and Germany. It has more than 500 employees.