By Sean Fenske, Editor-in-Chief

Sterile packaging is vital for virtually all medical devices. While the form factor, materials, and specific functionality may vary, it is required for healthcare products to ensure patient safety and protection against damage. However, suppliers of this offering are not always strategically located in all regions of the world to provide an easily accessible supply for manufacturers.

Understanding this, one company has decided to expand its facilities within Costa Rica, recognizing the emphasis medical device OEMs are placing on supply chain resiliency and regionalization. With the growth experienced within that country as well as the surrounding area, it is paramount to ensure a reliable supply of materials, components, and critical supplies (including sterile packaging) for manufacturers located there.

Representatives of this supplier company, Spectrum Plastics Group, A DuPont Business, have responded to a series of questions around both the importance of sterile packaging and its decision to expand within Costa Rica. In the following Q&A, James Chambers, SVP & GM, Fluids & Flexibles, Laura Favitta, VP of Engineering, Fluids & Flexibles, and Juan Carlos Garcia, Regional Business Manager—Costa Rica, tackle both topics.

Sean Fenske: How does the recent expansion of DuPont’s sterile operations in Heredia, Costa Rica, align with DuPont’s broader business strategy of enhancing global supply chain resilience and expanding presence in high-growth healthcare markets?

James Chambers: The expansion in Heredia, Costa Rica, plays a key role in our broader strategy to strengthen global supply chain resilience and grow in high-potential healthcare markets. By establishing sterile packaging operations in a region where many of our OEM medical device customers are also expanding, we’re better positioned to support their needs locally. It also gives us an additional supply option for the Americas, which enhances speed, flexibility, and responsiveness. Our broad network of global manufacturing sites and local commercial support provides a strategic advantage as we serve the growing global medical device market.

For DuPont and for Spectrum Plastics Group, a DuPont Business, this site is strategically important, especially as we continue to grow in sterile packaging and fluid management innovation and manufacturing. Heredia was a strategic investment with diversified operations—including sterile packaging, extrusion, and subassembly capabilities—to better serve our healthcare customers. In short, this expansion significantly enhances our robust, growing portfolio of unmatched offerings and capabilities as a trusted supply chain partner to leading global healthcare companies.

Fenske: How does the Costa Rica expansion reflect your strategy to scale engineering and technical capabilities across regional hubs?

Laura Favitta: Historically, we have taken the approach of developing processes in a single global innovation hub and subsequently transferring commercial manufacturing processes to regionalized sites. However, with the impressive level of technical expertise and talent in medical device hubs such as Costa Rica, we are shifting this approach to enable faster response to needs for prototyping and development. We are creating centers of technology excellence in-region to collaborate directly with local OEM medical device manufacturers to support their new and evolving product needs.

Fenske: How does the Costa Rica expansion enhance your ability to deliver advanced engineering and technical processes that meet the evolving needs of healthcare customers across the region?

Favitta: We are responding to trends in the medical device market toward heightened quality requirements, supply chain resiliency, and product design optimization. We have invested in state-of-the-art equipment with robust process controls, automated vision systems, and process data monitoring to support our ability to meet both current and future quality expectations. Our global footprint and supply contingency planning position us to respond with agility and expediency to any changes in component supply or customer demand. By expanding our market and product expertise in-region, we are uniquely positioned to collaborate with medical device innovators in early-stage development to optimize design for manufacturability.

Fenske: Why is a facility in Costa Rica important? What advantages does the location/region provide?

Juan Carlos Garcia: Having a local supplier can make all the difference when it comes to business continuity, and that’s exactly the role our Costa Rica facility plays. We’re strategically located just minutes from Costa Rica’s main Business Free Zones, only 15 minutes from an international airport, and within a few hours of both the Pacific and Atlantic ports. With this level of access, DuPont serves as a reliable local supplier for OEMs, helping them move faster, reduce risk, and stay agile in a dynamic market.

Fenske: Why are you expanding? What capabilities will be affected/improved?

Chambers: To keep up with the booming growth in the Costa Rica medical device industry, we are continually monitoring market gaps, identifying opportunities to grow with our existing customers, and ideating on product innovation that can build on our position as a partner of choice. We have been supplying sterile packaging to Costa Rica through our facilities in the U.S. and are now establishing our presence as the first sterile packaging converter in the Caribbean region. We are also expanding our capabilities to supply rollstock webs, sterile pouches, book-bound pouches, and die-cut lids. Within our Healthcare manufacturing site network, it is one of a few sites with diversified operations where we have sterile packaging, extrusion, and sub-assembly capabilities to provide a broad offering of capabilities to serve our Healthcare customers.

Fenske: What types of sterile packaging does Spectrum Plastics Group offer? What types of devices are most often using the packaging?

Garcia: Our packaging products for sterilization include pouches, lids, and header bags that leverage the unique properties of Tyvek®, providing tear resistance, durability, breathability, clean peel, and a superior microbial barrier to keep devices sterile. We also produce medical-grade paper pouches. The packaging we manufacture is commonly used to sterilize vascular, cardiovascular, and neurovascular devices.

Fenske: How is Spectrum integrating sustainable practices into its medical device packaging? How is the company supporting customers’ growing demands for sustainable and recyclable packaging materials?

Favitta: Spectrum is committed to the company ambition of “Innovate for Good.” By harnessing our innovation capabilities, we aim to deliver solutions to global challenges, enable a circular economy, and create products that are safe and sustainable by design. We have existing packaging solutions that are recyclable, include up to 100% recycled content, and enable significant material usage reductions

Fenske: What are your recommendations for customers seeking extruded tubing and/or sterile packaging? What are the best practices, factors to keep in mind, and best methods for working with you as the supplier?

Favitta: Medical device manufacturers should evaluate their sourcing processes and potential suppliers based on their device’s stage in the product lifecycle. In the early stages, it is critical to have engineer-to-engineer relationships to innovate, prototype, and iterate quickly. At commercialization, suppliers that can reduce the burden of validation and provide robust product and process data will reduce the likelihood of delays to critical product launches. Once products are more mature, value is driven through consistent delivery, efficient manufacturing practices that offer cost savings, and a robust global supply network that can accommodate spikes in demand and overcome disruptions within the market.

Fenske: Do you have any additional comments you’d like to share based on any of the topics we discussed or something you’d like to tell medical device manufacturers?

Chambers: It is worth noting that our new 16,000-square-foot expansion in Costa Rica is ISO 13485:2016 and ISO 9001:2015 certified, with its technical, assembly, and packaging team adhering to the highest quality standards and protocols. To support current and new customers, the facility is operating on a 24/7 production schedule. This enables us to serve our customers in the regions where they have their own production. This simplifies our partners’ supply chains, further mitigating many of the economic and geopolitical risks facing the medical device industry today.

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