Medical device CDMO TekniPlex recently cut the ribbon on its newest facility, a 200,000-square-foot ISO-certified factory that aligns with the company’s newly formed Barrier Protection Systems segment.
Among the already-installed equipment at the plant is a new air knife coater that will let TekniPlex boost its supply of coated Tyvek and heat seal coated reinforced papers for medical device, pharmaceutical, and diagnostic applications. It also includes a new wide-width eight-color high-definition flexographic printing press. But in the interest of flexibility, which allows the company to be more involved in the design and development process with its partners, TekniPlex built in lots of room to expand.
TekniPlex also placed focus on sustainability in its new facility. About 95% or more of the waste regenerated at the plant is recyclable, and compressed air exhaust is reclaimed to assist in the heating of the production area.
Medical Design & Development attended the grand opening and had a chance to speak with TekniPlex Healthcare CEO Suj Mehta about the project, the company’s plans to grow operations in Madison, Wisconsin, and what makes the midwest such an attractive location for medtech manufacturing.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Medical Design & Development: How long has this been in development?
Suj Mehta: I would say the inception of the idea was probably 2020, but really gained traction maybe about three years ago when we made the conscious approval to go ahead and move forward, and put in the investments
I mean, [an air knife line] is 18 months to get in place. You really, really need to make some commitments early on and say, “Hey, I want to put up a building and I want to do a greenfield as opposed to acquiring something.” There’s a lot of variations.
MDD: And what percentage of its capacity would you say it’s operating at?
Mehta: Oh, it’s almost not a valuable number because look at it, right? So we built this for growth, but effectively the market is expanding. So our [other] Madison plant is pretty much out of capacity. So what this does is, now we will be able to move and work with capacity between both of those plants. We also have a Milwaukee plant, and so we have an air knife over there in Milwaukee. And so there’s all of these puzzle pieces in terms of how you move it to really get the capacity of that line up and running. So it runs at 1,500 feet a minute compared to like 600 or 700 on the other line. So, this is really going to be able to service the world. That’s the key.
MDD: And when you talk about expansion here, how do you map that out? I mean, there’s so much space and it looks like you’ve already picked out a few spots.
Mehta: There’s a couple things that are on the come. I think the way to really think about the expansion is this plant was designed to move with the market. We’re talking about innovations in patient care; what innovations in patient care and technologies and where are they going. It’s for us to work with our customers and be like, what are your needs? We have die cutting experience, for example. We have experience in all kinds of materials solutions. So you’ve got a customer saying, “Hey, here’s my next generation product, but I don’t know what the right solution is for packaging it or the right way to get it to market.”
If you’ve got a good customer who’s saying, this is my need and, by the way, I don’t have these capabilities, can you do that? The answer would be, absolutely. Let’s sit down, let’s talk about it. And so we have certain areas designated for market development, right? Wherever the market goes, we go with it. And that’s the key.
MDD: That makes sense, because you’re not just a pure contract manufacturer, you’re a CDMO. And you’re making it sound like this kind of flexibility here is really key to that.
Mehta: It’s an excellent point because before some of the later acquisitions that we made, we were really just a CMO. And a CMO is like, a customer comes to you, I need this product, and you provide it.
The D and the design and the development piece of it means now I’m talking to R&D guys, I’m not talking to procurement people. I’m at the design phase. I’m working with them while they’re making their new innovation. I’m saying, I can package a set of solutions around your new innovation at the early stage because now I’m on the design team, not on the buying side where it might be too late. That’s the key.
So, a design team will say, I need this, and then we’ll talk to another customer and they say I need this. Then we’ll talk to another one. Oh crap, all three of you guys need the same solution? We’ll put it in for you.
And that’s the magic of the plant. We’re not limited to the things that we do here. We’re not limited. You heard [TekniPlex CEO Brenda Chamulak] speak earlier about how we have 58 plants globally. We have material science solutions across consumer products and healthcare. We get really, really deep in a lot of materials. So there’s a little bit of white space here. You kind of take it wherever the customer needs to take it.
That’s the beauty of it.
MDD: This is your second facility in Madison, and you have one in Milwaukee. There’s a lot of medtech companies who set up shop in the Midwest, the Twin Cities area. What makes the Midwest so attractive for medtech manufacturers?
Mehta: I think clearly this medtech hub was created around Minneapolis, and that happened organically through company after company deciding they’re going to create their medtech instrumentation hub or surgical hub over there. I think it is raw manufacturing talent and expertise.
Wisconsin has been a hub of manufacturing. I’ve seen and evaluated companies all the way from Appleton all the way down here. And there is incredible manufacturing talent in this region specifically. I think that’s what’s most attractive. You’ve got the people who are dedicated and you actually have a supportive development state that fosters that and doesn’t put up roadblocks. They’re extremely friendly to deal with. They believe in the lifeblood of manufacturing is one of the core industries for the state, and I think it’s a variety of factors that come together to make this what it is.
MDD: I won’t ask you to throw any of the other states under the bus. But what are some of the roadblocks that maybe prevent that kind of development in other markets?
Mehta: I come back to all of the different variables that need to kind of play into it. Geography is probably the biggest one, right? Wisconsin, where it sits, it’s kind of Heartland, right there in the middle. You can service the east coast, you can service the west coast. You go to other parts of the country and you may have humidity issues, like in southwest Florida, for example. You may have climate issues in Texas. And so it is very specific in terms of the variables that go into it. You go where your customers are, right? I think that’s foundational. And so when you see a nucleus of customers in a particular area, double down on the area. That’s it more than anything.
MDD: It’s interesting that you mentioned geography too. We were talking about the HVAC system at this new facility and then the bills at some of the plants in a hotter climate. It just blows your mind the amount it takes to cool those facilities. And here you’re heating this plant basically with the plant itself.
Mehta: A lot of people overuse state of the art. Everybody uses cutting edge and all of these terms. This is truly it. There is artificial intelligence that is playing in through the machines. There is humidity control that doesn’t exist in other areas. There is climate control systems that work on their own. It’s incredible. It’s very, very cool stuff. At the end of the day, that’s why you want to continue to double down and our objective is to get this plant filled as soon as possible. We’ve got macroeconomic challenges out there, and so the market hasn’t completely come back from everything that happened during COVID and post COVID. But that market is coming back.
MDD: And this is a good sign.
Mehta: This is a great sign. It says that investment’s coming back.