Out of the Gate and Into the Market: As Early Stage-Gate End Product, MEDEX 641 Sets Standard for Disciplined Development
Responding to a Market Need
Medical device manufacturers, like virtually all other industries, have become extremely focused on cost reduction and drive this initiative down through their suppliers. The packaging suppliers know that their raw materials, such as plastic sheet, are the single largest element of their cost, and thus, the greatest area of cost focus. Because of this there’s always been a desire to find lower cost material alternatives, with emphasis on performance properties comparable to the industry standard: PETG (Polyethylene Terephtalate Glycol-modified). While PVC, polystyrene, acrylics and other resins are used in medical packaging, PETG has remained the dominant material in the industry.
MEDEX® 641 was developed as a lower cost, clear medical packaging alternative to traditional medical packaging plastics, including PETG. The end result of disciplined innovation, MEDEX 641 has achieved a significant difference in total cost compared to other sheet materials.
Better Price for Equal Quality
Exhaustive research was conducted to develop a new material that delivered the processing and performance features demanded by packaging design professionals and thermoforming experts alike. Naturally, the medical packing industry will not compromise on packaging integrity and the ability to sterilize and hold a shelf life. They simply want to have alternatives in terms of lower total cost. The goal was to find a packaging alternative that offered a better price point for the same level of quality.
“There was no point in introducing a product that would be more expensive and compromise on other factors that were needed as industry standards. A ‘me, too’ result would add no incremental value. We kept the focus on what could we do differently,” said Josh Gray, President of GOEX Corporation.
The medical packaging market gained that elusive alternative when MEDEX 641 emerged from the GOEX Stage-Gate development process. MEDEX 641 extruded sheet material was developed specifically for rigid medical and pharmaceutical packaging applications. GOEX, along with medical device packaging customer, Prent Thermoforming, kept focused and on track by use of continuous checkpoints and validation.
An Alternative for Packaging Applications
MEDEX 641 is a proprietary resin blend that GOEX extrudes, and it is available as a clear or medical blue-tint material, essential in the medical packaging market for quick content visibility. MEDEX 641 thermoforms easily and trims exceptionally well. MEDEX 641 resin has attributes that contribute to easy formed-part separation or de-nesting without needing topical release agents like silicone.