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John Richard, business manager of DuPont Medical Packaging's North American division

At MD&M West 2006, DuPont Medical Packaging introduced U.S. medical device manufacturers to a new material in its Tyvek family of products, Tyvek Asuron. The new material is available for coated and uncoated applications, including bags, pouches, lidding, and rollstock. DuPont developed Tyvek Asuron after consulting medical device manufacturers, sterile packaging manufacturers, and other experts about how it could improve upon its widely used Tyvek 1073B with a next-generation product.

At a press conference on Wednesday, February 1, John Richard, DuPont Medical Packaging's North American business manager, described the new material. He called it equivalent to Tyvek 1073B in terms of base performance, with several enhancements. These enhancements were decided upon after giving the customer an "extensive voice" before and during product development, Richard said. DuPont focused on four areas of improvement:

Homogenous Appearance. DuPont has formulated the material so that it is more uniform in appearance than Tyvek 1073B. The addition of TiO2 gives it a whiter appearance, Richard said.

Improved heat sealing performance. Tyvek Asuron exhibits better visual appearance over a broader temperature range," said Richard. "The material can now accommodate wider variability in sealing equipment."

Enhanced Printability. "We have improved the overall print quality across all typical printing methods including flexographic and thermal transfer," said Richard. "There is reduced character fill in at smaller point sizes, and bar code quality has been upgraded."

Expanded fulfillment. DuPont is manufacturing Tyvek Asuron at both its Luxemburg and Richmond, VA, locations. "Currently, Tyvek Asuron is the only medical grade that is manufactured and supplied from two separate locations. DuPont decided to manufacture Tyvek Asuron in two locations "for companies worrying about contingency planning, especially applicable to large global medical device manufacturers," Richard said.

Sterile packaging manufacturers got a chance to evaluate the product during the last calendar year. These included Amcor Flexibles (Mundelein, IL), Mangar Industries (New Britain, PA), Perfecseal (Oshkosh, WI), Oliver Products (Grand Rapids, MI), and Tolas Health Care Packaging (Feasterville, PA). On the exhibition floor at MD&M West, DuPont as well as several sterile packaging manufacturers showed Tyvek Asuron.

Also speaking during the press conference was Cynthia Crouch, global business manager, healthcare, for DuPont Engineering Polymers. She described a number of the company's thermoplastic elastomers that can be used in manufacturing medical devices as well as drug-delivery devices. These include Hytrel, Delrin, Zenite, Crastin PBT, and Rynite. Some of these elastomers were reportedly used in the manufacture of mechanical components for Exubera's delivery device. The inhalable insulin powder product was just approved by FDA.