Founded in 2002, Minnesota-based Formacoat—an innovative biomedical, contract manufacturing company—excels at providing customers with industry-leading medical device coating services, including hydrophilic, hydrophobic, Surface-blocking/Anti-fouling, Anti- Microbial, Heparin, Collagen and PSA/ Adhesive coatings with thermal, UV cure and grafted coatings. The company helps medical device manufacturers improve device performance, meet diverse customer demands, and minimize internal expenses associated with coating operations. Their new 38,000 square foot facility, with 8,400 square feet of ISO Class 7 clean rooms, and a catalog of over 80 different types of coatings from 40 different vendors, Formacoat stands at the ready to take their customers concept to cash flow!

“We start with off the shelf coatings where possible and create custom-tailored coating solutions when common coatings do not meet customer needs. Our largest volume customer products are generally catheters and films coated with coatings from well-known lubricity enhancing brands of their choice. When someone brings a complex device to us, we can help them select the right coating due to our close connection with a wide range of vendors and a nimble team of expert chemists and engineers. Understanding the true product needs, we empower our clients to have the ultimate solution and reach the finish line more efficiently,” says Mark C. Gross, CEO of Formacoat.

Formacoat’s service offerings begin with a comprehensive survey to understand what a particular client wants. It zeroes in on the best solutions from a shortlist of coatings for more standard devices, to a wide swath of ideas for more unusual devices according to the business-specific needs and demands of the client. Then, it drives customers through test coatings to choose what works best.

Throughout the process, the company maintains a close connection with its clients.

“Our sound communication helps us to be more customer-centric,” comments Todd Paulsen, Sales Engineer. For other contract manufacturers with less depth coating technologies, Formacoat is an expert at streamlining the whole process, which helps its clients reach the market faster. Gross, remarks, “making products commercially available on a pre-decided date is a real challenge for medical device manufacturers. We help our clients overcome it. Our new facility has four different catheter coating lines, capable of coating several thousand catheters / Guidewires per shift, and coats film, mesh, stents and novel devices. This new capacity increases our ability to do R&D and production on more projects simultaneously. Our newest coating line is flexible for Rapid Prototyping.”

With an unwavering approach and years of expertise and a long-standing reputation in the contract manufacturing field, the company has notable customer success stories. One client needed a coating for their novel device with unique needs. The first coating option they chose didn’t satisfy the product’s needs. Formacoat offered eight not-so-common but potentially effective ideas and helped the client browse options with varied approaches and processes. The client decided to test until they found one that met their needs. Such instances reveal Formacoat’s versatility and tenacious ability to provide several different chemistries and technologies. “We built a diverse survey and took lots of factors into consideration. Our team always met the customer’s timelines with efficacy and efficiency,” Gross notes.

With a vision to cater to a wider range of customers, Formacoat’s team of Chemists and Engineers and brand new facilities are ready for the challenges of tomorrow. Striding ahead, the company is expanding its reach, building on its industry-standard coating options with custom solutions for the more complicated problems customers can encounter. “When novel solutions are needed, we have always tried to put out-of-the-box solutions on the table. Our goal is to support our customers’ journey from concept to the finish line, and we have the right people, equipment, and technology in place to do that,” concludes Gross.