Tekni-Plex begins production at new China manufacturing facility

Wayne, Pennsylvania – Tekni-Plex Inc.'s new manufacturing facility in Suzhou, China, officially began production after a $15 million (€12.5 million) investment earlier this year to support a growing Asia-Pacific pharmaceutical and medical device market. The company will hold a grand opening celebration 19 Sept, according to a company release.

The 140,000-sq.-ft. facility, which is about 30 miles away from Tekni-Plex's current Suzhou site, has already started manufacturing products for Tekni-Plex's Natvar, Colorite and Action Technology business units. The new facility is designed to replace the current facility in Suzhou and will employ about 140, with the potential for more jobs as business expands, Russell Hubbard, vice president, international and general manager, said in an earlier interview.

Production has stopped at the old location, and Hubbard said almost all of the employees from the old site have accepted jobs at the new one.

While the new factory has a comparable total space, it has a better layout and material flow, and provides about five times the clean room space, he said. The facility features three Class 100K cleanrooms to accommodate medical-grade tubing and components production, plus one Class 10K cleanroom that will produce Natvar's pharma-grade tubing.

The facility produces Natvar's recently announced silicone extrusion tubing for catheters, feeding tubes, drug delivery and peristaltic pump applications. Production for microextrusion tubing for neurovascular interventional therapies and surgical applications is expected to be onstream early next year. The facility will also manufacture Colorite custom compounds for medical device applications, and Action Technology's dip tubes used in food/beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, industrial and household pump applications.

Among those representing Tekni-Plex at the ribbon cutting will be CEO Paul Young; Hubbard; Ian Kenny, global managing director of Colorite; and Bob Donohue, general manager of the company's Natvar business unit.