People often ask “do relationships matter” in business. The simple answer is yes. This is particularly true in the ever-evolving medical device space. The Tape Lab’s Engineers pride themselves on having trusted relationships with the best material vendors and medical ISO 13485 converters.
Relationships like the one we have with Avery Dennison Medical help us design, develop and manufacture our clients’ ideas into medical products. Working with many of the leading medical companies in the wearable and remote patient monitoring space, we specialize in creating stick-to-skin devices for our clients.
In early 2021, The Tape Lab was hired by the leader in continuous health monitoring and clinical intelligence to help develop a stick-to-skin solution for their remote patient monitoring device platforms. The company had a first-generation device that utilized a skin and tie-layer adhesive that were underperforming.
They were not achieving the optimal wear time or performing to their standards. Once The Tape Lab was consulted, we quickly were able to develop a scope of work to design and manufacture a 10–14-day adhesive patch system to allow their device to continuously monitor their patients (remotely).
The Tape Lab was able to take use our many years of experience with long term wear adhesives as well as the vendors of the adhesives and design a solution that exceeded the customers specifications.
Their remote patient monitoring device was designed to adhere to human skin for 10-14 days without falling off or allowing moisture to build up and impact the device’s performance. Their active patients would be exercising, showering, working, and living their normal life while the device was adhered to their skin.
We also needed to design a tie layer of adhesive to the device that would be tough enough to endure the same day-to-day activities, and after the 10–14-day wear time remove cleanly from the device after usage. Finding the right combination of materials was a challenge.
The overall design was a collaboration between The Tape Lab and its material vendors and converting partners. One material vendor that was instrumental in the success of the remote patient monitor device was Avery Dennison Medical.
The long-standing relationship between The Tape Lab and Avery Dennison Medical was key to getting the right products specified on the customer’s platform.
Avery Dennison Medical is a medical materials supplier with a large portfolio of skin contact and tie layer tapes in a variety of constructions and adhesives. They also have a testing lab where they can do a full range of approved ASTM, PSTC and ANSI testing of tapes to different materials to ensure the products that are being designed for applications are validated using methods established in our industry.
When The Tape Lab was doing their diligence in gathering application details they brought in several tapes, films, liners and hydrogels from several material vendors to qualify on the device. The Tape Lab team knew that in-order to achieve a 10-day wear time for the device they needed to source materials that could handle the rigors of daily life with the device fully attached to patients of all sizes, demographics and worldly climate conditions.
With the help of Avery Dennison Medical’s on-site material testing lab, The Tape Lab was able to design the multi-layer patches and validate their longevity across a multitude of harsh tests that taxed the materials to ensure they could withstand the 10+ days of wear time.
The Tape Lab had to source materials, design the multi-layer lamination method, design the actual device patch shape, and size, and find a liner solution that was easy for a patient to use.
The Tape Lab deployed a rigorous process to developing and designing the remote patient monitoring patch. The customer’s platform had several iterations of the patches for different monitoring situations, each of which needed their own bench testing and wear studies for validation. The Tape Lab worked on all the development and specification writing for the testing.
After several months of testing, the customer evaluated the results and chose an Avery Dennison Medical product for the stick-to-skin and tie layer materials for the remote patient monitoring platform.
Today, the customer is launching their two production parts with volumes in the millions and gaining worldwide traction in their industry. The Tape Lab, with the collaboration of Avery Dennison Medical, successfully helped their client in all phases of the product development and production launch of their remote patient monitoring platform.
The Tape Lab is a specialty design, development and manufacturer of adhesive backed products. They specialize in helping clients with stick-to-skin applications. The Tape Lab also serves the consumer and general industrial markets.
The Tape Lab team has over 18 years of experience in both the manufacturing of the tapes and the converting of the materials into finished products. The Tape Lab’s differentiator is their relationships with their material vendors and their converting partners. The President of The Tape Lab is Jason Zajac.
Avery Dennison Medical is a materials science and manufacturing company specializing in the design and manufacture of adhesive-coated materials for medical devices. With more than four decades in the medical device industry, Avery Dennison Medical helps medical device manufacturers bring innovative products to market that can improve patient care. Avery Dennison Medical North America is led by Michael Muchin, General Manager.