Design

As swarms of police staged a door-to-door manhunt in Watertown, MA, doctors at nearby hospitals in Boston continued working on at least 40 victims of the Patriots Day Boston Marathon bombing still in serious or critical condition.

Surgeons say they are using plastics technology developed to save and improve lives of soldiers wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan in the past 10 years.

In response to a recent blog post on ANTEC, veteran medical device design engineer Len Czuba sent the following email to PlasticsToday, which is published here with his permission. He is the president of his own product development firm, Czuba Enterprises, which is located in the greater Chicago area, and holds 15 U.S. patents for his work. Czuba has served twice as the chairman of the Medical Plastics Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers.

The biggest and splashiest exhibit at BIOMEDevice in Boston this week was staged by a company that didn't even exist a year ago.

Rethink Robotics attracted crowds anxious to see activities of the new humanoid robot Baxter, which has been a big hit in the plastics processing industry since its launch late last year.

Liquidmetal Technologies has enough cash to last into 2014 and is currently pursuing three strategies to boost its future cash position, CEO Thomas Steipp said in an interview with PlasticsToday.

"Our revenues at this time are relatively modest, but what we are really measuring is the growth of prototypes going out into the market. We raised money in the middle of last year that is being amortized through equity and that runs through August of this year."

Liquid metal injection molding is a potentially disruptive technology for the production of precise, small parts for medical devices. Series production costs are much lower than machining, an advantage that grows as volumes rise. Considerable strength derives from the material's amorphous atomic structure.

Despite the rather gloomy report from the Committee on Equipment Statistics for Q4 2012 released by The Society of the Plastics Industry, business for most hot runner system suppliers is brisk. According to the SPI’s report, there were 1147 hot runner units ordered from reporting companies in the fourth quarter of 2012, a drop of 23% from the total booked in the third quarter of 2012, and down 15% from Q4 2011. For 2012 as a whole, hot runner bookings totaled 5264 units, a gain of 2% when compared with the total from 2011.

Diversification of capabilities is a big key to success for custom injection molder Blue Ridge Industries Inc. (BRI), a Winchester, VA-based company that serves the automotive, construction, and consumer markets. The company recently expanded into Additive Manufacturing (AM) with the purchase of an Objet Connex 500 3D printer.
   

Several researchers are exploring the potential use of composites made of degradable bioplastic and ceramics to replace metals as fastener implants that attach tissue to bones.

One of the more advanced projects in the new medical technology is at Purac, which last year acquired the FiberLive technology from Vivoxid Ltd., Finland.

Some times the journey from world's first to industry standard is a short one. It appears that could be the case for the replacement of aluminum in engine mounts and supports.

The annual technical conference of the Society of Plastics Engineers (Antec) has always been a great investment of two or three days of time, but thanks to the hard work of a few volunteers, it has become a particularly great place to meet real movers and shakers in medical plastics.