| Plastics One Inc.
Press Release |  |
Plastics One, Inc. has grown, becoming a supplier of medical equipment worldwide.
Sleepmate Technologies confirmed that it has hired Plastics One Inc. of Virginia to produce sensors for sleep analysis. Sleepmate is a big name in sleep sensors and has been in the business for 15 years.
Daniel Barchi, president and chief executive of Carilion Biomedical Institute, said that he met Sleepmate officials through the Virginia Biotechnology Association. The institute has since formed a partnership with Sleepmate's founder and chairman, Steve Burton, and some of his companies.
Burton said that he had known of Plastics One, but took a closer look after talking with the institute about the services it had to offer. The relationship already is multidimensional. Burton's separate medical device company, PhysioAdvantage LLC, has been assigned to test medical devices in connection with the health system. One device is a body temperature-gauging skin patch that PhysioAdvantage is developing as an alternative to temperature probes inserted in the body. The other is a home sleep test to identify whether people anticipating surgery have sleep apnea so needed precautions can be taken. Patients will be allowed to choose for themselves whether to participate in device testing, Carilion spokesman Eric Earnhart said.
Plastics One is a private, 230-employee manufacturer with many medically oriented contracts and customers. It sells to Sleepmate's competitors. And it sold Sleepmate's former manufacturer components for the items that company produced for Sleepmate. Now Plastics One makes the whole item. "We're impressed with their management team, their facility and their abilities," said Sleepmate President Scott Cardozo. Cardozo said that Sleepmate has about 30 percent of the market for sleep sensors, which are body-monitoring devices worn by patients spending the night in a sleep laboratory. A sleep laboratory is used to diagnose sleeping problems, such as sleep apnea, or persistent waking due to an airway obstruction.
On Tuesday, two employees hand-built Sleepmate sensors at Plastics One. The women joined short lengths of wire to form a temperature sensor worn beneath the nose to monitor breathing. Sleepmate has hired Plastics One to make eight or nine different products for delivery this month and 12 or 13 next month. "There are about 50 altogether," said Plastics One's Steve Heckman, senior research and development engineer. "That will probably go up over time."
Reference:
Sturgeon, Jeff. "Plastics One Gets Contract" (January 19) 19 January 05. The Roanoke Times Archives
