Care to keep the essentials coming
A GEELONG family-owned company that raced to help solve Australia’s personal protective equipment (PPE) crisis has secured a rare US import authority that will allow it to help Americans facing a deadly shortage of medical-grade masks.
Care Essentials recently received emergency use authorisation from the US Food and Drug Administration to supply N95 respirators to America.
The North Geelong company is ready to jump to its full manufacturing capacity of about nine million N95 masks a month to meet US orders as the Biden government tries to arrest the horrific COVID-19 toll of more than 500,000 lives.
PPE shortages throughout the pandemic have reportedly meant US frontline health workers ration their use of the highly effective N95 masks, which filter airborne particles and tiny droplets.
Care Essentials managing director Abhay Sinha said sample products from the company’s five automated
N95 mask-making machines were being examined by a large number of US buyers.
Mr Sinha said that at full capacity, each machine could make 1.8 million masks a month, and if orders from the US came through, he expected to be running them “24/7”.
Care Essentials is also developing PPE export opportunities in countries including the United Arab Emirates, Japan and Hong Kong, and has just filled its third order to Sri Lanka.
The company also expects a surge in demand from the US for its forced-air patient warming system, Cocoon.
“We have signed with a very large buyer in America, who controls about 2500 hospitals in the USA,” Mr Sinha said.
“That will add a huge dimension to our business.”
Care Essentials was one of the first Australian manufacturers to swing into production of PPE last year, with its first two machines becoming operational in July. It now has five machines making N95 respirators, two making surgical masks and is well advanced in installing new machines making Duckbill masks and 3D masks.
It also makes bouffant caps and shoe covers and is continuing to expand its PPE range.
“A new product which we are manufacturing locally in Geelong is alcohol swabs for skin prep,” Mr Sinha said.
With a strong history of growth, Care Essentials is getting ready to increase its footprint on the back of PPE and its core patient warming system, which Mr Sinha said had about 70 per cent of the Australian market and was exported to more than 60 countries.
The company bought a property adjoining its North Geelong base and plans to start preparing the 4000sq m factory on the site to be fit for medical device manufacturing in September.
Care Essentials also has a division servicing senior citizens.
It sells medical alarms under the brand name Medi Alarm and an incontinence product range sold under Holistic Incontinence that includes adult diapers, under pads and wet wipes.