Mediplas Announces Lineup for Speaker Programme

A strong line up of speakers has been published for the free-to-attend conference at Mediplas — a new trade show for manufacturers of medical plastics to be held at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham, UK, on September 25-26, 2012.

The conference will consist of four main sessions — Polymers in the Medical Industry, Plastic Processing in the Medical Arena, Materials Selection and Testing, Regulation and Legislations. The conference will be opened at 10.15 am by Mehdi Tavakoli, technical director of the UK-based public funding facilitator and networking group HealthTech and Medicines KTN.

As many as 19 speakers will present over the course of the two days. Highlights will include:

- Future Demands for Medical Plastics by Chris Dyke, connectivity director at UK-based medtech networking group Medilink;

- Challenges for (Bio)Polymer Sterilisation Within the Medical Device Arena by Dr James Kennedy, lecturer and senior research fellow at the Athlone Institute of Technology in Ireland;

- Polymer Processing from a New Perspective — The Micro Extrusion by Simone Maccagnan, sales manager at microextrusion machinery manufacturers Gimac in Italy;

- How Two-Shot Moulding Adds Value to Your Medical Device by Andy Tettmar, technical sales director, Hymid Multi-Shot contract manufacturers based in the UK;

- Laser Surface M0odification of Polymers to Enhance Adhesion by Andy J Wilson, research engineer at the University of Surrey and TWI Ltd also based in the UK;

- Testing, Regulations and Legislations Used in Medical Applications by Tim Hulme, principal consultant, Smithers Rapra and Smithers Pira in the UK.

Other highlights include a presentation on medical polymers from resin manufacturer Borealis, innovative processing and materials selection for contact lens manufacture, moulding or machining, molecularly imprinted polymers for delivery of corticosteroids, special effects in thermoplastics, analytical instrument selection and accelerated ageing of polymers.

Mediplas is being organised by Rapid News Commuications Group, which is the same company that successfully revived one of the oldest plastics trade shows in the world, Interplas, in 2011. In addition to the free conferences, visitors to Mediplas, along with its colocated shows TCT (rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing) and MM Live (micro manufacturing), can enjoy free parking and free wifi.