Medical Device Link.

Industry Intelligence: in brief

Vulcanium Metals International (Northbrook, IL, USA) has announced that a new titanium warehousing and processing facility will be fully operational in the United Kingdom by October 2009. The facility, which is located near Belfast in Northern Ireland, will be equipped and staffed to be a titanium stocking centre. It will offer the company’s FirstCut+ services, which are a variety of first-stage processing services and supply chain solutions for reducing costs and improving efficiencies for both customers as well as suppliers. The Northern Ireland facility will support Vulcanium’s UK-based business development managers in serving aerospace, medical device and other industrial markets across Europe.
www.vulcanium.com

AdvanSource Biomaterials Corp. (Wilmington, Massachusetts, USA) a developer of advanced polymer materials for a range of medical devices, has entered into a multi-year development agreement with a leading international medical device company.

The agreement calls for the development of a specialised solution-based polymer designed to meet the key characteristics required to optimise device performance. Upon successful development of the material, the two companies will work together to finalise execution of a multi-year supply agreement, which will include an annual usage fee per end-product incorporation and commercialisation. The solution-based polymer currently is being positioned for use across multiple product lines to be initiated over the next three to five years.

“This new development relationship is important in validating our business model,” noted Michael F. Adams, AdvanSource President and CEO. “The key driver [is] our ability to leverage our biomaterials technology and capabilities in partnership with developers and manufacturers of medical devices.”

www.advbiomaterials.com

Morgan Technical Ceramics (Stourport, UK) has introduced a new bioceramic material for surgical implants. Known as Vitox AMC, the alumina matrix composite can withstand high shock without fracture and exhibits low wear rates compared to alumina, metal or polyethylene. Developed at the company’s facility in Rugby, UK, the sub-micron grain-sized alumina matrix composite offers a 55% increase in four-point flexural strength and a 12.5% increase in fracture toughness compared to high-purity implantable grade alumina, reports the manufacturer.

The material’s strength and mechanical properties enable intricate shapes to be manufactured and prosthesis with thin wall sections to be produced. In addition, it can be used to manufacture large-diameter femoral heads of up to approximately 60 mm in diameter and thin-wall section acetabular cups.

“Our aim was to find a way to combine high wear resistance, excellent mechanical properties and long term stability into a single bioceramic that would improve comfort and quality of life for patients,” says Yannick Galais, Commercial Manager, at Morgan Technical Ceramics.

www.morgantechnicalceramics.com

Plastics manufacturing equipment supplier Wittmann Battenfeld (Wellingborough, UK) will present its all-electric EcoPower injection moulding machine at Germany’s annual injection moulding exhibition, Fakuma, which takes place in Friederichshafen on 13–17 October 2009. Two machinery sizes, 55 t and 110 t locking force, will be there. The EcoPower machine range is set to be extended to a 300 t locking force, and a 180 t machine will be introduced by the end of 2009.

The EcoPower plastics injection moulding machine series comes with a compact, beltless injection unit and is made to a modular design and preconfigured, which enables the machines to be laid out for standard high precision injection moulding, and for cleanroom and high speed applications, says the company.
www.wittmann.co.uk

Microfluidic applications provider Dolomite has entered a partnership with sensor manufacturer Sensirion AG (Stäfa, Switzerland) to offer microfluidic flow meters for the measurement of ultra-low liquid flow rates in the laboratory. This technology allows for sensor-actuator integration in Dolomite’s range of microfluidic products. The compact and lightweight devices operate with total media isolation in combination with low internal volume and no moving parts for fast and accurate performance. Using minimal energy consumption, the low flow sensors are capable of operation at high pressures with high resolution within a large dynamic range and can accurately measure flow rates from 0.05 to 4000 µl/min.

The incorporated CMOSens sensor technology from Sensirion combines a precise thermal sensor element for exact temperature control with an A/D converter circuit and digital signal processing to ensure an extremely sensitive response. All measured data is fully-calibrated via an internal microcontroller. The chemical resistance and bio-compatibility characteristics make this sensor suitable for various microfluidic applications.

The sensors are available as part of a laboratory kit, which includes all of the software and fittings required for immediate use. The easy-to-use software enables simple capture, visualisation and exporting of any measurement data.
www.dolomite-microfluidics.com

www.sensirion.ch