UG Healthcare launches lanolin-coated exam gloves

By Liz White, ERJ staff

Torrance, California-UG Healthcare (USA) Inc. is marketing a new examination glove range to helping glove users protect their hands from dryness and chapping.

The firm's Lano-E gloves, coated with lanolin and Vitamin E, are made using a patented process developed by the firm. UG Healthcare makes both natural rubber latex and nitrile versions of the gloves. The firm claims the coating "is absorbed by the hands, replacing the natural moisture that is constantly leached from the skin through the daily regime of hand washing and the use of non-coated gloves."

Lanolin is a natural material obtained from sheep's wool. UG Healthcare says "Unlike the oily products found in most hand lotions that degrade the latex film, our patented process uses lanolin in a hydroxylated (dry) form so that the barrier properties of the glove film remains intact and is not compromised."

Vitamin E is an additional healing and conditioning aid, the firm saif,

"Nurses who use gloves on a daily basis can now choose a high quality glove that both protects them, and one that helps maintain the natural moisture in their hands," said UG president Ken Stanton, in a company release.

UG Healthcare's medical-grade Uni-Glove brand gloves are made at parent firm NS UniGloves Sdn Bhd's plant at Seremban in Malaysia. The group has warehousing and distribution operations in Torrance in the US and in Bergheim Troisdorf in Germany, in addition to those in Malaysia.

The Malaysian firm, set up in 1988, has expanded its Seremban factory several times, and is presently completing a new factory, "incorporating the latest technology," that will expand capacity by one-third, according to a statement on the group's website.