Healthcare Elastomers: 6 can't-miss perspectives from medical sector experts

AKRON—The 2023 Healthcare Elastomers Conference sponsored by Rubber News boasts a litany of industry-leading speakers across a range of topics.

Attendees can expect to hear about innovative medical rubber products; the essential durability of medical gloves, and how alternative, more sustainable rubbers can assist in manufacturing; macro-market issues on remaining agile in the global marketplace and the overall challenges facing medical molders; and how supply line difficulties have forced alternative thinking with thermoplastic elastomers, as opposed to silicones.

Many other topics—AI and automation in rubber development and regulatory testing for elastomers in the medical space—are set for the event, taking place May 8-9 at the Akron/Fairlawn Hilton.

Registration is open and available online at rubbernews.com/healthcare.

At this conference, the goal is to present new technologies, trends and opportunities in elastomer applications that will help drive the future of the health care industry.

Here is a look at six of the 12 renowned speakers highlighting the event:

Few companies have had as busy a year as Trelleborg did in 2022.

And when it comes to growth, diversification and opportunity, well Trelleborg Healthcare and Medical had quite the year as well.

Linda Muroski, president of Trelleborg's health care and medical business, will explore how growth within the medical sector demands agility and an all-in approach to service and production.

During her keynote speech, set to kick-off the event May 8, she'll dive into expectations facing medical device manufacturers and discuss the need to provide holistic, value-added services.

Mursoki was named Rubber News Executive of the Year for 2022.

Katrina Cornish, research director for the Ohio State University, is one of the most sought-after speakers in the rubber world, across a range of topics up and down the industry stream.

She will speak May 8 from 10:30 to 11 a.m. at this year's Rubber News Healthcare Elastomers Conference on "Durability Variation Amongst Medical Gloves Made from Different Elastomers."

As endowed chair and an Ohio Research Scholar, she is an expert in alternative, sustainable feedstocks for rubber, especially as an alternative to natural rubber. Her expertise in latex, guayule, the TKS dandelion and isoprene produced by bio-fermentation methods—among many other sustainable innovations—is internationally respected.

She also studies methods around recyclable rubbers and bioplastics, as well as formulation technologies.

For Rubber News readers, Cornish is especially recognizable as a go-to source for stories on many of the topics mentioned.

Her career spanning federal, academic and industrial appointments has resulted in more than 35 issued or pending patents, many with student and staff co-inventors, more than 300 published papers, worldwide lectures and a history of considerable public and private funding.

Hilarie Rubin will take the podium May 8 from 1:40 to 2:10 p.m.

Rubin is a senior account manager for Teknor Apex Co.'s strategic value chain, and her 15 years of expertise comes in end-use markets and applications, including consumer products, medical, packaging and E&E, via both aftermarket and original equipment contracts.

In the last five years, Rubin has witnessed a supply chain threatened by war, weather and anomalies, and the rise of thermoplastic elastomers as an alternative to sought-after silicone rubbers.

"For decades, silicone has been the elastomeric material of choice for medical devices, health care and biopharma applications," she states in a synopsis of her talk, "Silicone Shortages Fuel Innovation in Thermoplastic Elastomers for the Medical Industry."

The trend has fueled innovation for Teknor Apex, and attendees will take a deep dive with Rubin into this important issue.

The parent company may have changed for Don Bonitati, but his charge as Trelleborg's Healthcare and Medical segment director remains the same: expand the biopharma capabilities and the growth of active pharmaceutical ingredients in combination products (among many other responsibilities).

Bonitati comes to Trelleborg from Minnesota Rubber and Plastics, which Trelleborg purchased for just less than $1 billion last year (though MRP remains as the brand for its products).

Bonitati is evidence of the shared R&D cultures between the two companies, as he works in the innovative fields of cardiac rhythm management and neurostimulation.

His talk, set for May 8 from 3:40 to 4:30 p.m., will focus on a third avenue over which Bonitati presides at Trelleborg: the time-to-market research and development channel.

With "Fast-Tracking Product Development to Get to Market Faster," Bonitati will talk to both manufacturers and suppliers about application challenges facing their companies in the medical space.

He will conclude the talks on the first day, with the Healthcare Conference networking reception set to follow at 4:30 p.m.

Amalendu Sarkar, vice president of materials technology at Cirtec Medical, will kick off the second day at the 2023 Rubber News Healthcare Elastomers Conference with a keynote address titled, "Selection Challenges of Suitable Elastomeric Materials in Healthcare Applications."

Sarkar has three decades of experience in the medical and automotive fields, and is an expert in the processing realm (molding, compression, transfer and injection), as well as mixing, calendering and extrusion.

"The medical device industries such as drug delivery, surgical, fluid management and pharma packaging, are diverse, innovative and dynamic," Sarkar offers in a synopsis of his talk. "The global market for medical devices is huge and it is showing continuous growth in future."

Sarkar also maintains expertise in fatigue failure in rubber-to-rubber joints.

His informative presentation will highlight some of these selection requirements, as well as processing requirements, from his many published articles and research works.

Who has 50 patents, 75 percent of which are still in use, generating more than $500 million in net sales today?

Alison Bagwell, that's who.

The president and founder of Shield Technology L.L.C. has more than two decades of R&D experience, previously with Kimberly-Clark Corp. before striking out on her own with Shield.

Her expertise is wide-ranging, developing products in enteral access devices, pain management, IV therapy and wound care, among many other medical avenues.

Bagwell will speak May 8 from 1:10 to 1:40 p.m. on "Medical Protective Devices and New Manufacturing Paradigms."

Such protective devices saw their heyday during the height of the pandemic and remain critical today: think gloves, shields and respirators.

And companies like Shield no doubt be will considered "essential" in the future, as the world grapples with new and ongoing sickness.