COMPAMED continues road to success

DUSSELDORF – COMPAMED established its reputation as the world's largest pharmaceutical fair with Halls 8a and 8b running at full capacity alongside MEDICA, the world's leading trade fair for suppliers to the medical technology industry. Held between 14th to 16th November, 645 exhibitors from 34 countries represented a new record, and a booked floor space of more than 11,600 square metres, as well as the fair’s visitor numbers (MEDICA running until 17th November 2012). Of a total of 130,600 visiting experts whose ticket gave them access to both events, more than 16,000 visitors also came to COMPAMED.

"Visitors were given an impressive overview of the range of services offered by suppliers. The industry has not been just about the manufacture of individual components for some time. COMPAMED exhibitors are competent partners in all phases of the product life cycle -- from product development to production to spare parts management," according to Joachim Sch?fer, managing director of Messe Düsseldorf, explaining the close integration of supplier's business processes with those of suppliers of technical medical devices (at the MEDICA exhibition).

"The extremely short cycle of innovation of technical medical devices and systems requires a cooperative approach," adds Mr Sch?fer: "European 'MedTech' companies invest an average of eight per cent of their revenue in research and development. The product life cycle often is as little as two years. Any company hoping to keep up as a manufacturer also needs innovative suppliers."

For instance, 2E Mechatronic is considered innovative in the miniaturisation which continues to gain traction in medical technology. At the "DeviceMed Awards" staged for the first time at COMPAMED 2012, the company won the prize for the development of an extremely small thermal flow sensor in the category for micro- and nano-technology.   "The SMD chip in our part is housed in an MID housing, i.e. in a circuit carrier manufactured using an injection moulding process, and works without a PCB", explains Stephan Huttenlocher, Product manager at 2E Mechatronic. MID stands for Molded Interconnect Devices. The special artificial material LCP (Liquid Crystalline Polymers) is used, which contains the metallic components. The laser machining practically releases it enabling the necessary conductor tracks to be made in a three-stage metallisation process. Smaller than the previous model by a factor of 20 or so, one application is in breathing apparatus.

Air Foamposite One