The $40 million Northeast Ohio firm that does about 85 percent of its business in health care fields (mainly medical and surgical) finds itself in transition once again, pivoting late last year into the TPE tubing space for biopharma applications.
The new biopharma product line, which became operational in August 2023 at KEP's 25,000-sq.-ft. Mogadore facility, offers cutting-edge TPE and PVC tubing exclusively for fluid transfer applications.
"We have come up with something that in a lot of ways is better than silicone," Danes said. "The product we just launched checks all the boxes—it has great burst strength, longevity, and leachable records ... and it is much cheaper than silicone."
Oborn said that testing the new product line—known as BioVTEX, suitable for sterile fluid transfer, peristaltic pump application and bioreactor systems—was not cheap.
"We spent a quarter of a million dollars in testing to present that product," he said. "There was a major investment on our part."
Danes said Oborn was critical in getting this operation off the ground.
"This is his other legacy, what he didn't tell you because he is humble," Danes said. "Bob was critical in getting our extrusion business up and going. We would not be who we are today if we had not done that.
"We would have been a fraction of who we are now."
Since latex and extrusion operations don't mix well on the manufacturing floor, the biopharma extruded tubing operation was moved from the Kent facility to Mogadore.
"Then we had to fill the space that extrusion occupied here in Kent," Danes said. "And Bob played a huge role in acquiring two new dip molding processes and got them going so that we now have the three specific products ... in custom dip-molding."
In 2001, KEP bought Precision Latex Inc., a specialist in dip molded products for small- to medium-run batches.
In 2006, KEP acquired the dip molded product line from Hospira Inc., adding synthetic polyisoprene to the company's line of non-latex materials.
KEP, a subsidiary of Meridian Industries Inc., was founded in 1960, growing and evolving into a leading U.S. solutions provider for the global medical market. Meridian purchased Kent Latex in 1979.
Besides medical, the company counts the orthodontic and food and beverage spaces as its top markets.
"We provide prototype expertise and guidance, packaging solutions and on-time delivery that keep a wide range of industries moving and growing," Danes said.
KEP's headquarters, latex and custom-dip molding operations are located in a 50,000-sq.-ft. building in Kent, Ohio; while its TPE and PVC extrusion operations are conducted in nearby Mogadore, Ohio.
Assembly, quality and shipping operations are located in Winesburg, Ohio, a 75,000-sq.-ft. facility that opened in 1975.