“What do you want and why? While this may seem like a basic concept, it is one that often times can be overly complicated and even missed altogether. We’re continually amazed at how important the answers are to those seemingly simple questions. Before we offer answers to your coating challenges, we want to know what you care about, even what the customer who use your device care about. By digging deeper and listening to our customer’s needs, we gain a better understanding of what you need that leads to improved results, sooner.”

           Mark Gross, CEO and Owner of Forrmacoat

Another favorite formula: Medical device design insight yields manufacturing lubricious coatings foresight.

 Why Formacoat Collaborates with Different Coatings Vendors to Bring Your Custom Coating Solutions to Life

There is no one “best” medical device coating. Some are really good in some situations, and not so in others. Some may work better than one situation needs, and end up costing that way too. Medical device performance requirements have become progressively more demanding over time. Formacoat works with over 45 different coating formulators who offer over 90 different coating chemistries and technologies. They use these different technologies to address the specific needs and challenges of each device in creative, robust and cost efficient ways. Formacoat’s expertise provides a powerful partner in this niche area of medical device coatings.

In our offerings from different coating vendors, we have a variety of different technologies to choose from which include Hydrophilic, hydrophobic, Surface-blocking and Anti-fouling, Anti-Microbial, Heparin, Collagen and PSA/Adhesive coatings. We have thermal cure, UV cure and grafting technologies as well. By working with Formacoat, their knowledge of your device and needs gathers momentum if first options don’t work as well as expected, rather than you having to start all over with another vendor. When starting out with initial comparative studies, they can do comparison friction testing to augment your own functional testing.

                                              Experience True Service with Our Value-Added Focus.

Device manufacturers working with Formacoat cover a cross-section of application types, designs, company sizes and  geographic locations including:

• Vascular and cardiovascular, auditory, ophthalmic, implant delivery

• Catheters, guidewires, tubing, wire, roll to roll applications, film, screen

• Medical businesses, and unique industrial applications

• Fortune 500 companies, mid-sized companies and small start-ups

• U.S. and Internationally-based companies

Formacoat’s long term customers value the collaborative input and experience of staff and the way they relate to designing a repeatable, scalable coating process. Even better, these customers enjoy working with them and appreciate the personal relationships they foster!

With the expansion of their new facility and greatly expanded production floor, Formacoat has invested a large amount of time, energy and resources necessary for getting into the drug coating market. Their coating capabilities now include drug coatings (DES, Drug Eluting Stents) for coronary, peripheral stents, neuro devices and balloon catheters as well as the contract manufacturing service applied to those devices. They offer coatings from the full range of polymeric materials and chemistries for specific customer needs and indications with many ways to apply coatings to different kinds of devices, substrates and materials - and the commercial scale equipment to do so at any level of production.

One of their newest vendor offerings, a grafting technology, has been in commercial development at Formacoat for the last couple of years. This revolutionary technology allows them to graft to select substrates in such a fashion that it creates a durable, lubricious layer that is tunable for our customer’s specific requirements. Imagine this coating like a field of grass; they can configure the parameters is such a fashion that we can not only have the grass sprout up wherever they would like but also as thick or thin as possible. This allows them to tune the lubricity and durability and is excellent for the smallest of IDs where traditional hydrophilic coatings are unable to be functionally applied. As this is chemically grafted to the substrate of your device, it also allows for excellent flexibility with our fear of the coating cracking or de-laminating. This process can offer pricing that is lower than other coatings.

Formacoat's experience includes coating the inner and outer diameters, or the complex component shapes, of the following medical device types with anti-microbial properties, among others:

• Films
• Micro-Catheters
• Drug Delivery Catheters
• Stent Delivery-System Catheters
• Embolic Capture Devices
• Medical Device Balloons
• Component Level Materials
• Hypo Tubes
• Micro-well plates
• IVD
• IOL Insertion Cartridges and other ophthalmic devices
• Medical device Implants         
• And much, much more!

In addition, Formacoat can provide guidance on regulatory compliance with its staff seasoned in medical device development and compliance expertise. Each partner’s needs are unique, and Formacoat’s response to those needs is unique as well.

Formacoat’s satisfaction comes when customers gain an edge over the past performance of their medical devices as a result of working together with us. As demand for lubricious hydrophilic coated devices and specialized hydrophobic coatings has grown, Formacoat has grown as well, with classic “Win-Win” client relationships.

Formacoat is family owned and its second generation members are invested in maintaining the quality and consistency that comes from sustaining long term relationships with employees, customers and vendors. Formacoat's family owners are committed only to the success of the business, without the short-term monetary pressure and the sudden upsets in culture that often comes with private equity and venture capital types of ownerships. This means that the Formacoat family will continue to work for you, providing the coating expertise you need.

Whether your requirements are to coat inner/outer diameters or complex part shapes, click hereto learn more about Formacoat’s medical device and substrate coating capabilities.