At the beginning of 2020, the new crown pneumonia epidemic swept across China, and then constituted a global pandemic, which dealt a heavy blow to all walks of life. The medical and health industry, which is most closely related to the epidemic itself, directly bears the major responsibilities of all parties for treatment, prevention and control. President Xi Jinping pointed out that major scientific and technological achievements in the field of life safety and biosafety are also the country's most important weapons, and the epidemic prevention and control and public health emergency system are important components of the national strategic system. It is necessary to accelerate the completion of the shortcomings of my country's high-end medical equipment, accelerate the research on key core technologies, break through the bottleneck of technical equipment, and realize the independent control of high-end medical equipment.

Plastics are indispensable in medical device manufacturing and medical material innovation. In this epidemic, the upstream and downstream of the plastics industry twisted into a rope, fighting the "epidemic" with one heart.

The epidemic is the order, and the hard core of plastic raw materials guarantees the production of epidemic prevention and treatment materials

Health protection supplies, which were originally not of concern, became the focus of the public's attention overnight. The surge in demand for protection supplies has promoted a large number of relevant production companies to actively resume work and production, and even "cross-border" conversion. The epidemic is the order, and the prevention and control is the responsibility. The raw material manufacturers immediately put their full efforts into production and research and development to ensure the supply of raw materials for medical supplies.

On February 11, ROHM Chemical (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. donated 200 boxes of 200,000 medical nitrile gloves to Shanghai's anti-epidemic first-line institutions through the Shanghai Red Cross. The gloves were used in hospitals and communities for anti-epidemic, epidemic prevention. Nitrile gloves are mainly made of nitrile rubber. They are essential hand protection products used in medical, pharmaceutical, and sanitary operations to prevent cross-infection. The batch of nitrile gloves was urgently produced by ROHM's long-term customer Shijiazhuang Hongrui Group. This product uses MERACRYLTM GMAA methacrylic acid produced by ROHM as an important raw material. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, ROHM has initiated an emergency response mechanism, complied with the requirements of governments at all levels, and maintained the normal operation of its continuous process production plant in Shanghai Chemical Industry Park while ensuring the safety of employees and the safe production of the enterprise, so as to achieve customer satisfaction. The commitment to ensure the supply of raw materials for the materials needed by the society, including emergency anti-epidemic materials.

Also "hard-core" anti-epidemic is the Dawn Group. As a leading enterprise in mask cloth polypropylene meltblown special materials, in order to ensure the supply, Dawn Group urgently recalled employees who had been on holiday on the second day of the Lunar New Year, and produced full capacity 24 hours a day. As the epidemic became more severe and customer orders followed, Dawn Group used its R&D and technical advantages as well as a smooth emergency mechanism to urgently organize production expansion, transformation and conversion, and daily output increased by more than 70%. In the fight against the epidemic, Dawn Group has customized and produced 25,000 tons of polypropylene spunbond materials to maximize the supply of non-woven materials and demonstrate the "hard core" supply guarantee capability. Dawn Mould has also launched a new production line for medical masks, with a daily output of 140,000 disposable medical protective masks.

DuPont provides reliable protective equipment to the epidemic area to ensure the safety of medical staff. The production process of DuPont protective clothing began in Richmond, Virginia, USA, where DuPont’s largest factory is located. After heating and pressure treatment, the polyethylene fabric will be flattened and rolled, and then shipped to 9 locations around the world. A production plant is made into protective equipment. DuPont’s popular white Tyvek® protective clothing is made of DuPont’s patented Tyvek® material, which has anti-virus, moisture permeability, antibacterial, anti-blood penetration, waterproof, anti-static, flame-retardant properties. It also allows water vapor to leak out, and the texture is light and comfortable to wear. DuPont medical protective clothing has a filtering effect of more than 99% on viruses and bacteria. By blocking blood, dust, droplets, and droplets, it reduces the spread of bacteria and germs to medical staff.

Intelligent manufacturing seizes the opportunity for enterprises to resume work and production

Affected by the spread of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the Chinese New Year holiday has been extended, and employees cannot return to work in time due to epidemic prevention and control traffic control, personnel isolation and other reasons. Insufficient labor has become one of the core issues restricting the resumption of work and production. Under the influence of unfavorable factors such as the lack of labor, the shortage of protective equipment, and the panic of the crowd over the personnel-intensive production, the production capacity recovery of the traditional manufacturing industry is facing a greater crisis.

Most companies that can reproduce in the first time have automated and digital production lines, which can avoid the spread of the epidemic caused by the gathering of people when they resume production. Therefore, the "preferred item" for the economic development of the post-epidemic epidemic must be digitalization and automation, and intelligent manufacturing will become a solid "big rear" in the post-epidemic era.

During the epidemic, “hard currency” masks were in short supply. Shandong Tongjia Group quickly and smoothly conquered the intelligent technology and equipment for mask production, put it into the market in batches and quickly received orders. Its emergency self-developed automatic one-to-two flat face mask machine adopts online automatic control technology, servo control technology and start-up linkage technology. It has the kinetic energy of automatic film placement, automatic shifting, and automatic stacking, and realizes full automation. Human operation, reducing manual contact, can produce 100,000 masks per day. Compared with the common mask production line on the market, this equipment saves a welding station, and the entire longitudinal and horizontal ultrasonic welding is completed in a super welding station. From smart bagging and packaging to box packaging, all realize intelligent production, all using unmanned operation, and it can also improve the protection level of the product. Tongjia will also develop a flat mask machine with one to four and one to N.

In addition to masks, goggles and other medical protective materials are also in short supply, and relevant companies have resumed work urgently. FCS Group is working side by side with the production enterprises of prevention and control materials to provide "powerful weapons" for the frontline medical rescue of the anti-epidemic. FCS FB-R series multi-component injection molding machine cooperates with Fanke Mould Co., Ltd. to launch a one-time medical "nebulizer mask" production system to help manufacturers of epidemic prevention materials improve production efficiency. The multi-component servo energy-saving injection molding machine developed by FCS can be equipped with up to four groups of injection units and can form up to 18 multi-component configurations. The maximum clamping force of the vertical rotary table can reach 1,900 tons. It is equipped with a closed-loop servo valve, The new single-cylinder injection structure and the patented turntable positioning fixture increase the injection speed and are more suitable for the production of fine and thin two-color products.

Jinwei Machinery actively provides professional extrusion machinery and equipment support for the protection industry: PP non-woven fabric extruder, PP melt-blown non-woven fabric extruder and TPU/EVA/TPE film extrusion production line. Polypropylene meltblown non-woven fabric, an important material for epidemic prevention and control, is made of special polypropylene raw materials, added with trace medical grade additives, and made of special materials produced by extruding and granulating through Jinwei’s twin-screw extruder using unique process technology. Medical materials. This special material has the characteristics of stable fluidity, narrow molecular weight distribution, and excellent spinning performance. It is used to produce meltblown non-woven materials and can be widely used in medical protection, sanitary cleaning materials, filter materials and other fields. There is also a TPU/EVA/TPE film extrusion line. TPU film is made into a film based on TPU pellets through a casting process. Kingwell adopts one or more single-screw extruders for co-extrusion. Each extruder is divided into 8 temperature control areas to accurately control the temperature. The maximum output can reach 600KG/H. It can be used as a single layer, A/B/A or The A/B distribution mode can meet the requirements of covering the upper and lower layers with release film and attaching cloth at the same time. TPU film has excellent characteristics such as environmental protection, non-toxic, anti-bacterial, abrasion and corrosion resistance, and biocompatibility. It is widely used in medical isolation clothing, protective caps and other medical isolation products such as sanitary and anti-epidemic materials, shoe materials, garments, sports equipment, Medical equipment, etc. Based on the digital and intelligent management requirements of the factory, this series of models provides functions such as automatic control, data acquisition, data storage, data analysis, production management, and global remote synchronization monitoring to realize the management and management of the entire extruder production line or extruder factory. Digitization and visualization of the process.

After the epidemic, the medical device industry has unlimited potential

In the fight against the epidemic, PCR companies worked overtime during the Spring Festival to develop new nucleic acid detection kits, mask manufacturers resumed work ahead of schedule, many public hospitals opened online consultation channels, medical robots rushed to the frontline of epidemic prevention, and the demand for home medical products increased sharply. Many innovative medical products and technologies, such as virus isolation beds, isolation chambers and other products, have appeared in the public's view due to the rapid acquisition of registration certificates. After the epidemic, medical and health companies may usher in new developments.

In addition to the current shortage of medical protective equipment, many devices are also in short supply. Mindray Medical released the "Investor Relations Activity Record Sheet" that during the epidemic, the company's product demand exploded, orders doubled, short-term supply pressure, and its ventilators, monitors, infusion pumps, and mobile DR required for diagnostic screening Demand has shown explosive growth over the same period in previous years. Mindray Medical also provides portable ultrasound, in vitro diagnostic blood cell analyzers and CRP during the epidemic.

Yuyue Medical also recently issued an announcement stating that the company’s disinfection control, temperature measurement, blood oximeter and mask products are completely out of stock. Its ventilators, nebulizers and oxygen generators are required for the treatment of pneumonia patients. Demand is also constantly increasing.

The demand for home diagnostic and monitoring medical equipment and wearable medical equipment, such as blood pressure monitors, blood glucose meters, oximeters, electronic stethoscopes, and smart bracelets, is soaring. After this epidemic, consumers will pay more and more attention to health. Various types of chronic disease management systems and health science education software based on home diagnosis and monitoring equipment will have a large market in the future. Household products such as health care, preventive care, and medical-physical integration will also increasingly become people's rigid demands.

"Medical Plastics Exchange" is fully upgraded and attacked

Given the size of the existing market, the potential for upgrading and replacement of raw materials is huge. Chinese enterprises are in urgent need of benchmarking and metering, focusing on high-end and differentiated special materials, gradually replacing imports, and seizing market share in the medical market. The concurrent event of "CHINAPLAS"-"Medical Plastics Exhibition" came into being and has been successfully held for five consecutive years, creating an efficient, centralized and intuitive communication and display platform for manufacturers of medical equipment, consumables and pharmaceutical packaging. "Medical Plastics Center" is composed of "Professional Forum", "Medical Theme Exhibition Area", and "Medical Plastics Guide". This year, the anti-epidemic theme will be added to showcase the relevant applications of medical plastics in many ways. Stay tuned.