A day at the races: What's on at Medical Technology Ireland 2019

Medical Technology Ireland returns to Galway Racecourse on 25-26 September 2019.

With over 200 global suppliers exhibiting and a conference programme featuring the Start-up & Innovation Academy and the Women in Medtech Forum, Medical Technology Ireland 2019 is a key event in the calendar.

What’s on display?

One of the firms taking centre stage will be Arburg, one of the leaders in injection moulding and plastics technology in the medical space. Colin Tirel, managing director at Arburg, explained: “We will show a Freeformer 200-3X additive manufacturing system, this will allow us to offer the visitors a live demonstration of our application expertise and the versatility of the Arburg Plastic Freeforming (APF) process, which can produce one off or small volumes of fully functional components from standard plastics granulate.”

The group is planning to show the potential of the Freeformer, not just for the medtech industry, but potentially also the pharma sector.

Tirel added: “At the exhibition, the Freeformer 200-3X will produce a very innovative medical product: a pill with several active ingredients in one capsule. The use of conventional manufacturing methods to produce such products is a multi-stage, time-consuming and costly process. Additive manufacturing provides the flexibility required to provide integrated, complex microstructures to integrate different drugs into different parts of a pill. In addition, additive manufacturing makes it easy to adjust the respective dose to the relevant patient. The dose is released in a controlled manner, resulting in an optimal therapeutic effect over the period of 24 hours.”

The project, in collaboration with the School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Science, University of East Anglia, Norwich, focuses on the use of the Freeformer for the production of pills with multi-active ingredients and functional geometry, which control and facilitate the release of the active substance.

Another firm bringing something new to the sector is ODU-UK Ltd, which will be showcasing several new innovations in its range of push-pull connectors, developed specifically for medical equipment.   

What’s more, the group recently published a whitepaper on smart Connectors with integrated EEPROMs (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory). Based on some customer-specific projects, ODU now offers an off-the-shelf solution to system designers. Electronic identification via microchips is a well-established process, however the integration of EEPROM technology inside the connector provides many advantages for both the OEM and users.

ODU’s smart connectors offer some interesting potential solutions for medical equipment manufacturers and these are outlined in the new whitepaper (you can read the full document at www.odu-uk.co.uk/downloads/whitepapers/).

Also hoping to make a connection at the show is LEMO, which will be highlighting its latest range of medical interconnect solutions.

The group will bring its range of industry-leading electrical and fibre optic interconnect solutions to share with the Irish medtech community.

Products on display will include the Redel SP range of connectors which will give both existing customers as well as potentially, new design engineers, the opportunity to view some of the latest innovations and discuss their specific requirements with the LEMO team.

For coding and marking, TLM Laser will showcase FOBA’s fixtureless marking technology – MOSAIC and IMP (Intelligent Mark Positioning) with a FOBA M1000 system.

The MOSAIC concept uses the camera to capture multiple small images and then arranges them into a single large image, just like a mosaic. This image is then used for system training, job setup, part validation, pre-mark verification and mark alignment.

As long as the parts are placed anywhere within the marking field, the system will determine the position and orientation prior to accurately producing the mark required.

Punters will also want to check out the Nordson Dage Explorer One, which Quiptech plans to launch in Ireland on the first day of the event. This high resolution, super compact X-ray system identifies defects as small as 2 µm with QuadraNT¬ X-ray tube technology. While powerful automated inspection routines save significant time for batches of boards, program a routine once, then simply click to go.

The Irish market

The local market is jostling with many of the major medical device OEM brands, and as such, the supply chain itself thrives in Ireland. Nick Harper, MD at ODU-UK explained: “Once again we are pleased to be exhibiting at Medical Technology Ireland.

Just as medical equipment manufacture and export is of considerable importance to the economy of Ireland, it is likewise a most important market for ODU.”

Arburg’s Colin Tirel added: “We have always considered Ireland to be a very important market for Arburg. We have been dealing with the Irish market for injection moulding machines and associated technologies for over forty years. The market is heavily focused on the pharmaceutical and medical sector.

“Over the years we have been successful in working closely with many customers, large and small in order to meet their requirements on an ongoing basis through our technology portfolio. We have now entered a completely different sector within additive manufacturing with the Freeformer”.

The regional industry isn’t just focussed on medtech either. As Andy Toms, director at TLM Laser explained: “There is also a healthy semiconductor, electronics, aerospace, tool and die and automotive sector that we supply into. Ireland represents about 30% of our turnover so is an important part of what we do. We would like to see this percentage grow.

“Ireland has a mass of overseas investors and this enables us to break into companies that normally we would have to trade through the USA to do business with. The result of this is the volume of smaller second and third tier suppliers that have established themselves, and grown into large entities which all need similar or the same laser processing equipment.”

And why Galway, specifically? It has been said that while Dublin has an enviable cluster of medtech firms, Galway has more in the way of digital tech and advanced materials.

Céline Laget, general manager at silicon specialist Sterne said: “From our point of view, Ireland and particularly Galway seems to be one of the main regions where multinational companies pool together in medical and biomedical sector, with smaller companies revolving around. Thus, regarding our core business and expertise in medical and biomedical sector, Galway appears as a potential target and a strategic location to offer our services.”

Sterne is specialised in the design, development and manufacturing of custom silicon parts, with its core business being in medtech. Its French facility includes cleanrooms to ISO 6, ISO 7 and ISO 8 standards, and our quality management system is established under ISO 9001:2015 & ISO 13485:2016.

On the subject of standards, staying ahead of the regulatory curve is one of the reasons Irish, and Irish-based OEMs seem to succeed.

Joanne O’Toole, marketing specialist at PEL Group (parent company to Quiptech) explained: “Medical devices make up almost 10% of all Irish exports, making Ireland a significant manufacturing territory globally for the sector. To maintain this position in the global market, there is an increased need for companies to automate the assembly and inspection processes.”