Manufacturer Trelleborg will exhibit advanced polymer solutions for healthcare and medical applications during the event.
Trelleborg has developed and supplied silicone tubing, film and custom-moulded components, as well as elastomer and polymer seals to manufacturers for their biotech and pharmaceutical equipment and medical devices for more than twenty years.
Trelleborg’s healthcare and medical operation brings together all its global sales, development, design and manufacturing facilities to better meet its customers’ needs.
Linda Muroski, global president, Trelleborg’s healthcare and medical operation, commented: "We are focusing our global expertise in healthcare and medical to provide our customers the industry-specific solutions they require. Creating a healthcare and medical operation strengthens our ability to respond even faster to customers’ requests, whether they be for new innovations, expanded capabilities or potential geographical expansion.
“We partner with customers from the initial design phase through prototyping and commercialisation, utilising our engineering and material expertise and global portfolio of manufacturing capabilities to meet customer needs at every stage of development. This accelerates time to market for new medical devices. And to ensure those medical devices and services meet customer and regulatory requirements, all of our healthcare and medical facilities conform to ISO 13485-2016.
“Trelleborg manufacturing facilities specialise in producing custom silicone and thermoplastic components, including micro-moulded parts, parts with complex geometries and multi-component parts. Our in-house tool rooms develop high precision Liquid Silicone Rubber (LSR) tooling combined with advanced automation technologies to support production volumes ranging from prototype to high-volume serial production.”
At MD&M West, Trelleborg will showcase its medical silicone tubes for long-term implants. Due to their biocompatibility and physical resistance in medical applications they are able to act as both conduits to transport liquid, and as insulators for cables and sensors. The products must meet high-precision control and process stability demands, and also be implantable for up to several years. All long-term implantable silicone products are processed in cleanroom environments.
Trelleborg has also developed a range of specialty tubing and hoses. Tubes are available in a range of sizes and are designed jointly with customers to meet their individual application needs. Examples include multi-lumen, flexible, kink-resistant and silicone tubing with a plastic core for minimally invasive instruments, catheters and probes.
The organisation’s patented GeoTrans technology claims to enable a significantly greater variation in the geometry of tubing, supporting unique, customer-specific designs. For example, one lumen can be separated into two lumen (or two into one) during the extrusion process, eliminating the need for a moulded component between the different segments. Additionally, lumen can be stopped and restarted, or the dimensions of tubing can be changed, which is often necessary for wound drains. Reducing the process steps in manufacturing saves time and decreases potential sources of failure - reducing costs and mitigating risk.
Also on display at MD&M West are Trelleborg’s silicone sheeting and film capabilities, which aim to address the increasing demand for flexible, breathable wound dressings to minimise scarring, reduce the risk of infection and accelerate healing.
"Depending on the medical application, wafer-thin silicone gel films containing active pharmaceutical ingredients are being increasingly used in place of more traditional burn and wound care treatments," says Drew Gaillard, global director, Trelleborg’s healthcare and medical operation. "The silicone film can be combined with antibiotics or decongestants, which can potentially replace epidermally applied medication. These drug-eluting silicone films significantly improve treatment for the patients."
Trelleborg will be in Hall D, Booth 2601 at MD&M West in Anaheim, CA, from 11th to 13th February.