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Innovating Through a Pandemic: Our Role Then and Now

Ventilator Components

Back when we were still calling the coronavirus “novel,” businesses around the world stepped up to meet the challenge of dealing with a brand-new disease with unknown risks. Like many innovative companies, Minnesota Rubber & Plastics responded by leveraging our design, prototyping, and manufacturing capabilities to produce critical components for newly in-demand healthcare applications.

We’re proud to say we produced components for medical and diagnostic devices that bolstered global response capabilities from single-use triage to prevention. We also learned creative ways to navigate supply chain challenges while maintaining production.

In 2022, spiking infection rates, staffing challenges, and changing global conditions continue to put pressure on the healthcare system. The solutions Minnesota Rubber & Plastics and other manufacturers offered in 2020 are still changing healthcare outcomes two years from the initial peak of the pandemic.

Our medical components and assemblies manufactured in collaboration with our customers can be found in healthcare applications throughout the continuum of care for COVID-19, from prevention and diagnosis to medical devices used in treatment.

  • We supply four major OEMs in healthcare with components to make ventilators for hospitalized patients.
  • Our rubber components are used by the leading healthcare companies in creating fluid paths in sterilized systems with tubing, connectors, clamps, valves, and more. These systems are critical to manufacturing COVID-19 testing materials, monoclonal antibody treatments, and vaccines.

Source: CCX Media

A recent CCX news story covered our involvement in these COVID-19-related innovations. They also attended the groundbreaking ceremony for our new innovation center. The MN Rubber & Plastics Innovation Center, scheduled to open Spring 2022, will foster collaboration to move critical components from design stages through the prototype process and to market faster than ever before.

What’s Next?

No longer “novel” as we enter year three of the pandemic, COVID-19 remains a driver of healthcare innovation with new viral variants and mutations necessitating constant iteration and response.

Minnesota Rubber & Plastics will continue to provide reliable, accurate solutions across the industry and where needed most. We are proud to be in the company of other manufacturers, OEMs, and supply chain experts bringing medical device solutions to the global healthcare industry and its hardworking frontline responders.

Let’s Innovate Now

No need to wait for the official opening of the Innovation Center. Let’s bring your product to market faster now.