Humble Beginnings
The Advant Medical journey began in Mervue, Galway, Ireland in 1993. This was a difficult time period for Galway City. A number of large firms closed, leaving the region with high levels of unemployment and banks had very little tolerance to lend money to start-ups.
Despite the economic difficulties, our founder, Bob DiPetrillo decided to move from the USA, to follow his passion and founded a small medical device packaging company. From his work in the medical device industry, he recognised an opportunity to provide medical dispensers/hoops to the European market. The company started with just six employees, 1 cleanroom and a dream of becoming a full service contract manufacturer. The mission: to provide our customers with the highest level of quality products.
Just 3 years later, Advant Medical moved to the IDA Parkmore Business Park. Working closely with the IDA, Advant established an internal infrastructure to support the local and European MedTech growth. As success of the MedTech sector became a steamroller, entrepreneurs started one by one to find success, along with steady growth of Multi-Nationals and as a result unemployment in the region went down. Companies of all sizes came one by one to Galway City, which was now the beating heart of the MedTech industry in Ireland.
Growth and Global Opportunities
As our relationships grew with our customers, we knew that we would have to look at expanding our operations to meet their demands. In 2012 Advant Medical established a manufacturing partner in Reynosa, Mexico. This global location expanded our production capabilities allowing Advant Medical to produce products closer to our customers’ locations, generating quicker lead times, and reducing shipping costs for the Americas.
As the industry continued to grow and develop, Advant Medical needed to adapt. In 2014, Advant Medical acquired an injection moulding company in Inverin, Co. Galway, Ireland. Pursuing vertical integration, this acquisition allowed Advant Moulding to produce products at a much more competitive cost. This facility has flourished under the guidance of Advant Medical, producing hundreds of millions of injection moulded components every year and creating jobs in a Gaeltacht (native Irish speaking) region.
However, Advant Medical knew it needed to do more. Once again they turned their eyes to the global picture and in April 2018 Advant Medical Costa Rica began operation. This 13,000 Sq. Ft standalone facility, with a 2,100 Sq. Ft. Class VIII cleanroom, was developed to meet the growing demand in the Americas market. The medical device industry is well established in Costa Rica with over 70 life science multinationals operating there. Their English proficiency and high technical education levels made Costa Rica the ideal location to further scale our global ambitions and provide a local footprint to our customers.
Advant has continued to grow, now employing over 250 staff globally, operating in 12,500 Sq. Ft. of Class VIII cleanroom space and increasing our additional service offerings. From Medical Dispensers/ Hoops Protective Devices to Contract Manufacturing and Injection Moulding, Advant Medical is now the ‘Partner of Choice’ to medical device OEM’s around the world. The long term dream of providing a full service contract manufacturing solution to our customers became a reality.
So now that you know where we’ve come from, where are we going?
We are the number one strategic ‘Partner of Choice’ for our customers’ medical device needs. As our customers’ needs have changed, so too has our journey. Our strategy continues to flow with the industry, always staying relevant, and always meeting our customers’ requirements.
We believe in an ‘Advant Connection’, a connection between the Advant Team and our customers. We take the time to listen to our customers, understand their needs, collaborate, offer solutions to problems, and develop plans to grow with them. We are customer committed and Quality Centric. We have proven ourselves as experts of medical device manufacturing and packaging through our experienced team and flexibility to meet our customers’ growing challenges.
We are growing our capabilities, refining our services, investing in technologies and further developing our team. We are the ‘Partner of Choice’ because throughout the years our key mission has remained the same: to provide our customers with the highest level of quality products.
We are now part of UFP Technologies
The combination of Advant and UFP is an excellent strategic partnership. The addition of UFP’s development engineers, product lines and resources expands our current portfolio and strengthens our ability to provide innovative solutions and services. With a shared commitment to growing within the Costa Rican, Irish and European MedTech sectors, the Advant Team looks forward to building on our combined strengths and continuing to offer our customers world-class medical device contract manufacturing.
About UFP Technologies, Inc.
UFP Technologies is an innovative designer and custom manufacturer of components, subassemblies, products, and packaging primarily for the medical market. Utilizing highly specialized foams, films, and plastics, they convert raw materials through laminating, molding, radio frequency welding and fabricating techniques. UFP is diversified by also providing highly engineered solutions to customers in the aerospace & defense, automotive, consumer, electronics, and industrial markets. You can learn more about the company at www.ufpt.com and www.ufpmedtech.com.
Find out more about the acquisition here.
