INNOVATION | MEDICAL
As the urgency surrounding Covid-19 passes, attention in the medical plastics sector is shifting to larger, durable
devices.Peter Mapleston reports on machinery and materials
Moulding medical parts from small to large
The high speed with which vaccines were devel- oped and preventative measures found to counter the SARS-CoV-2 virus can be put down to many fac- tors, among them the ability of plastics technology companies to step up to the plate with new solutions connected with diagnostics and im- proved medical devices. But while Covid-19 has clearly brought out the
best from materials and equipment suppliers in their ability to innovate, many companies were developing innovative products for diverse medical applications long before the pandemic and will still be hard at work when it will be just a memory. In this article, we take a quick look at some of the most recent developments, including one that should help companies in Europe weighed down by new legal responsibilities imposed on them by the Medical Device Regulation now in full force. The medical market has been strongly influ- enced by the Covid-19 pandemic since the
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beginning of 2020, and the trend is likely to continue into the immediate future. However, there’s now a strong leaning towards larger strategic projects, notes Anatol Sattel, Director Business Development Medical at Sumitomo (SHI) Demag Plastics Machinery. This impacts medical moulding machinery choices. In the 2010s, smaller higher speed machines with a clamping force under 1,800 kN were in great demand. Now, Sattel reports increased require- ments for larger machines to manufacture complex applications. Either way, he says, the company’s IntElect series can fit the bill. At the beginning of the pandemic, small plastic
parts such as laboratory pipette tips were in particularly high demand, notes Sattel. “Countries across the globe invested vast sums of money increasing their production capacity to mirror this demand, in parallel building up their correspond- ing machine technology. Following on from the
September 2022 | INJECTION WORLD 49
Main image: Microtiter plates are being mass produced for high-speed testing
IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK
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