Graham Engineering said today it inked a collaborative deal with The Conair Group in which both companies will exchange equipment to be used in both company’s extrusion labs to develop medical tubing.
Graham will contribute a 1-inch American Kuhne Ultra CR extruder with AKcess touchscreen to Conair’s Pinconning, Mich.-based lab.
Conair will provide its MedVac vacuum sizing and cooling tank, as well as a MedLine puller-cutter and take-away conveyor which will be installed in Graham’s new medical lab in York, Penn.
“Conair and American Kuhne have a long history of partnering on extrusion applications, not only on equipment, but also on expertise in process optimization, which is vital to the development and testing work taking place in our new medical laboratory in York. Conair has been on the forefront of efforts to solve complex medical extrusion challenges such as non-contact and contact vacuum-sizing techniques for small bore medical tubing and cutter blade and bushing designs to effectively cut low durometer, difficult-to-feed small bore tubing,” Graham global medical biz development director Steve Maxson said in a press release.
The new lab will work to develop next-generation bioresorbable tubing for stent scaffolds, multi-layer structures for minimally invasive devices, drug delivery devices, gradient tubing and automatic die-centering technology.
“This new extruder will expand our capabilities. It is specially equipped to allow us to process fluorinated ethylene propylene, which is increasingly being used in tubing for critical medical applications,” Conair medical downstream extrusion sales manager Bob Bessemer said in prepared remarks.
