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The global medical device market is valued at around $200 billion and the United States consumes about 45 percent of this. Markets are growing in Eastern Europe, Brazil, Russia, India and China, according to consultant Len Czuba. The Middle East and Africa have potential for growth, but there are limitations of infrastructure and political instability. Current healthcare trends include minimally invasive surgery; device developments include a silicone access port for multiple instruments and remote handgrips that simulate real hand feeling.
Biodegradable/bioabsorbable materials are seeing increased usage, but can be difficult to process. Materials and device development were discussed extensively at the AMI conference on Medical Grade Polymers 2009 which took place in Philadelphia, PA, USA. Demand for medical plastics is expected to reach $6.55 billion in the United States in 2012.
The FDA has regulated medical devices in the United States since 1976 and its standards are recognized worldwide. The process is risk and data based — benefit must outweigh risk. Approvals include good manufacturing practice and control of material suppliers to ensure consistent products. Tests vary with category — implants are highest risk. Polymers used in implants include polyethylene, PEEK, silicone, polysulfone, PTFE, polypropylene and polycarbonate, along with the bioabsorbables polylactic acid (PLA), polyglycolide (PGA) and copolymers of PLA/PGA. Coatings are used on medical devices for protection and to improve biocompatibility.
Despite a weak fourth quarter, U.S. plastics exports showed robust growth in 2008, according to a new report from the Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. Although trade barriers remain to accessing a number of overseas markets, U.S. plastics remain competitive and highly desired in the international marketplace. However, domestic shipments in 2008 declined just under one percent, as the recession began to take its toll on U.S. plastics consumption.
While exports during the fourth quarter of 2008 were down 23 percent from the prior quarter and down 12 percent from the same quarter in 2007, SPI’s 2008 Global Business Trends report shows that overall exports increased by 6.7 for the year.
Breaking the $50 billion barrier for the first time, U.S. plastics exports accounted for almost 4.4 percent of total U.S. exports in 2008. Imports meanwhile increased by a more modest 3.0 percent in 2008 to just under $39 billion.
A team of pioneering South Korean scientists has succeeded in producing the polymers used for everyday plastics through bioengineering, rather than through the use of fossil fuel-based chemicals. The team, from the prestigious KAIST University and the Korean chemical company LG Chem, led by Professor Sang Yup Lee, focused their research on polylactic acid (PLA), a bio-based polymer which holds the key to producing plastics through natural and renewable resources.
Until now PLA has been produced in a two-step fermentation and chemical process of polymerization, which is both complex and expensive. Now, through the use of a metabolically engineered strain of E.coli, the team has developed a one-stage process which produces polylactic acid and its copolymers through direct fermentation. This makes the renewable production of PLA and lactate-containing copolymers cheaper and more commercially viable.
“By developing a strategy which combines metabolic engineering and enzyme engineering, we’ve developed an efficient bio-based one-step production process for PLA and its copolymers,” said Lee. “This means that a developed E. coli strain is now capable of efficiently producing unnatural polymers, through a one-step fermentation process.”
This combined approach of systems-level metabolic engineering and enzyme engineering now allows for the production of polymer and polyester based products through direct microbial fermentation of renewable resources.
“Global warming and other environmental problems are urging us to develop sustainable processes based on renewable resources,” concluded Lee. “This new strategy should be generally useful for developing other engineered organisms capable of producing various unnatural polymers by direct fermentation from renewable resources.”
World demand for thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) is forecast to rise 6.0 percent per year through 2013 to 4.2 million metric tons. Gains will be exaggerated to some extent by the fact that growth will be arising from a weak, recessionary 2008, particularly in many major developed countries. These and other trends are presented in “World Thermoplastic Elastomers,” a new study from The Freedonia Group, Inc. (www.freedoniagroup.com).
In 2008, China accounted for 32 percent of world TPE demand, and an even higher 42 percent of global styrenic block copolymer (SBC) demand, indicative of the country’s dominance in the manufacturing of SBC consuming products such as footwear. Although smaller than China in overall TPE and SBC demand, the United States was the world’s leading national market for thermoplastic polyolefins (TPOs) and thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPVs) in 2008, due to these products’ higher penetration rates in motor vehicles produced in the United States.
Excluding China, global TPE sales will remain heavily concentrated in the developed markets of the United States, Western Europe and Japan, particularly for higher performance materials such as TPVs and copolyester elastomers (COPEs). Most developing markets focus on low cost SBCs due to their existing positions in styrene-butadiene and polybutadiene rubber, but some such as China are also diversifying into thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPUs) and, to a lesser extent, TPOs. Growth prospects through 2013 will be strongest in developing nations such as the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Motor vehicles will remain the largest market for TPEs at the global level, with demand of 1.2 million metric tons in 2013. Through 2013, olefenics (TPOs and TPVs) will continue to see increasing penetration in motor vehicles in both interior and exterior applications. There is significant interest and collaboration among global automakers and TPE compounders in trying to produce an all-olefenic auto interior and large exterior car panels made with TPOs.
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