Helping people improve their health is multi-layered teamwork. In the field of sophisticated medical technology, this comprehensive spectrum also includes all people who provide the right high-performance plastics for the development of this technology: the plastic compounders who ensures the optimal composition/performance of the required materials.
Even if the patient's well-being is at the centre of all work and activities, the primary goal of the compounder is to make the work of the product developer or the processor or designer as efficient and successful as possible. Just as with any doctor from every conceivable specialty, four basic competencies are crucial:
- appropriate "instruments",
- extensive specialist knowledge,
- the high art of attentive listening
- many years of experience.
Only in this way can challenges and any problems be fully penetrated and developments or possible solutions can be approached and implemented in a promising manner. Regardless of whether these are located very close to the patient (such as a retractor or an endoscope handle) or rather further away (such as a sterilisation container).
The LEHVOSS Group has been a partner for medical device manufacturers since the 1980s and offers a variety of polymers including customised materials. These include coloured, laser-markable and theologically optimised materials, structural and mechanical materials with glass fibre and carbon fibre reinforcement, powders, filaments and granules for 3D printing. For applications in medical technology the focus is on high temperature / high chemical resistant materials as PEEK, PEI, PPS, PPA and PPSU.
Whether retractors, endoscope handles or sterilisation containers – high-performance plastics basically go along with every development step. A good compounder combines all this in one.
On the one hand, they know about the performance of the amorphous/semi-crystalline high-performance plastics, and, on the other hand, knows both the requirements of the users and those of the processors.
Above all, however, they know from their experience that even the most advanced material development alone does not produce an innovative medical technology product.
Much more is needed for this.
Regardless of whether materials based on PEEK, PPSU, PPA, PA 66 modified with carbon or glass fibres and additives – only in the further development/production process does it become clear whether the materials behave under the influence as all participants hope or as they expect.
The high-performance compounds offer perfectly matching material solutions for a wide range of requirements in the field of medical technology.
Conclusion: It's like the relay race – the interface counts.
Even the highest speed of the individual runner is of no use in a relay race if the handover of the baton is not well rehearsed. In a figurative sense, this also applies to the cooperation between the compounder with its high-performance compounds on the one hand and the product developer on the other. The more long-term, competent, intensive and detailed the transfer of know-how can be carried out by both sides, the sooner a new product development achieves its goal or the more continuously and stable a development/ optimisation/production process can take place at a consistently high level of quality.