MEDICAL | MATERIALS
Increasing need for medical
plastics during Covid-19 The global Covid-19 pandemic has certainly had a major impact on the injection moulding industry, but the growth of medical materials continues in many directions. Mark Holmes reports
The past year, dominated by Covid-19, has been exceptional for plastic mouldings linked to diag- nostic instruments and consumables, as well as ventilators, reports MedPharmPlast Europe (MPPE) – a sector group of processor organisation EuPC, created in 2014 for companies involved in the entire supply chain of plastic medical devices and pharmaceutical packaging in Europe. How- ever, this has been balanced by reduced demand for plastics related to surgical interventions. Nevertheless, the global market for injection moulded plastics for medical applications remains robust and continues to grow consistently at between 5-7%, with North America and Europe being the largest markets, but consumption in China and India growing rapidly. “China has a high concentration of Western injection moulding companies, but many have faced
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some challenges in capturing projects from Chinese OEMs,” says Steve Duckworth, MPPE President. “Given the size of the population and governmental strategy, China’s domestic medical device producers have strong domestic demand. However, they also have global ambitions, targeting developing markets such as Brazil and Africa. For many years India has been a hub for manufacturing pharmaceu- ticals and pharmaceutical intermediates through companies such as Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy’s, Cipla and Glenmark. However, for medical and drug- delivery devices India has lacked some infrastructure in design and development. Over the past few years, the Indian government has encouraged a Made in India strategy. With strong core engineer- ing skills, India has been developing a stronger home-grown capability, which also covers design and development. This is now playing an important
Main image: Nextis is mould- ing several parts for an advanced respirator from Air Liquide Medical Systems, including a flexible protective cover for the device’s USP port made using a Kraiburg TPE material
January/February 2021 | INJECTION WORLD 13
IMAGE: ALMS
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