PROCESSING | MEDICAL TUBING
Spectrum buys Fermatex Vascular
Meanwhile, US-based medical extruder Spectrum Plastics Group has acquired Fermatex Vascular Technologies, a supplier of reinforced medical tubing, catheter sub-assem- blies, and speciality extrusions. Fermatex employs around 100
people at two adjoining buildings – which include certified clean rooms – in New Jersey. It has been owned by Vance Street Capital since 2017, but traces its history back to 1960 – when it was founded as Adam Spence
Corporation. Spectrum says it will rebrand
Fermatex back to Adam Spence, given the wider familiarity of its history and reputation. Neil Shillingford, Spectrum CEO, said: “Our combined operations present exceptional scale and capability to medical device OEMs seeking the proper manufacturing partner for highly specialised compo- nents, catheter delivery systems and sub-assemblies.”
otherwise have poor adhesion to each other,” he told delegates. Compounding Solutions has developed LLDPE
grafted with maleic anhydride as a tie-layer resin. Its Rezilok Rx 101 resins can be used in multi-layer, co-extruded catheter tubing. Tie-layers are either reactive or non-reactive:
non-reactive tie-layer resins work through entan- glement, polarity or low-level hydrogen; reactive ones create covalent bonds due to a reaction between a functional group in the tie layer resin and the bonding substrate. Typical existing tie-layer resins for medical applications are EVA, or grafted polyolefins – which have superior performance to standard polyolefin tie-layers, he said. Rezilok resins can be used to join a range of
different materials, including polyamides, polyole- fins and PET.
Below: Kink resistance is an important property in medical tubes
Elastomeric advantages Robert Mariotti, head of R&D and quality assurance at Francesco Franceschetti Elastomeri in Italy, provided guidelines for choosing a thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) in medical tubing. First, he said, there were different needs for
different types of tube. For instance, infusional tubes need flexibility/hardness, transparency, low kinking and solvent bondability. Then, tubes for peristaltic pump require softness, high elastic recovery,
fatigue and abrasion resistance, and low extractables. Finally, TPEs for catheters need hardness, surface roughness control and low microbial growth.
He added that characteristics common to all types of tubing 16 PIPE & PROFILE EXTRUSION | September 2018 The newly acquired facilities will
ultimately operate under Spectrum’s speciality technologies platform and work with its Apollo Medical Extrusion Technologies units and brand. Spectrum has made eight acquisitions over the last four years to grow its business as a medical components and plastics manufacturer. The two companies were present at the MD&M East show in New York City in June – with Fermatex exhibiting as Adam Spence Vascular Technologies.
included: easy processing and high output; biocompatibility; sterilisability; and the ability to weld or bond.
“It is possible to manage the formulation of the compound in order to obtain specific characteris- tics or functionalities,” he said. “Two decisive issues are raw material selection and formulation design.” Mariotti said that his company’s Marfran Med compounds – based on TPE-S – have been used to make tubes for a wide range of medical applica- tions. For instance, its HTR and HTRE grades have been used for catheters and multi-lumen hosing for urology, endoscopy and dialysis – which can be machined and assembled with other parts to produce the final device. “TPE-S compounds are a new opportunity for new medical devices and the pipes connecting them,” he said. Staying with TPEs, Nobuhiro Miwa – technical service engineer at Kuraray Europe – said the company is developing a new version of its Hybrar styrenic block copolymer (SBC) to have improved kink-resistance and softness. Hybrar is typically used to replace flexible PVC in
applications such as medical tubes and bags. It has a modified mid-block to have better compatibility with polypropylene (PP). Key requirements for medical tube include transparency, flexibility, toughness, processability and the ability to sterilise with ethylene oxide – as well as kink resistance. It is developing an experimental grade called
KL-7301, which it has compared with an existing Hybrar grade called 7311F. The main difference between these two grades
is that the new grade has a styrene wt% of 8 (compared with 12 for the commercial grade), and a melt flow rate (MFR) of 19 (compared to 2 for the commercial grade).
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