The CI Medical, Inc. printing company is the only ISO 9001:2008 certified pad printing company in the USA catering exclusively to medical device marking needs of the medical OEM. Established in 1985, CI Medical has committed itself to mastering medical device pad printing technology and has proven itself a leader in innovation, problem solving and reliability.
Committed to Being the Best
Our proprietary medical device pad printing equipment has been specially developed and customized for quality, consistency and efficiency. Complementing the specialized medical device printing equipment are our innovative medical device pad printing techniques developed over many years of partnering with major medical device manufacturers. Our internal commitment to ISO certification requirements ensures quality operational follow-through and the superior customer satisfaction that the medical device pad printing industry demands.
The CI Medical printing company has proven proficiency in providing solutions to medical device printing challenges such as:
- Permanent Ink Adhesion to difficult substrates such as FEP, PP, PE, PTFE, etc.
- Quick Turnaround on medical device prototypes
- Specialty medical inks and custom applications
- Irregular surfaces
- Fine detail printed in 360 degrees (such as on medical catheters)
- Unusual product size or shape
- Specialty heatshrink
- Complex multi-color imprints.
Partnering to Develop New Technologies: Case in Point – the Radiopaque® Ink Marking System
CI Medical's Applications Engineers often partner with leading OEMs' medical device engineers to develop new medical device marking technologies. Working as Supplier Partners with medical device engineers at the embryonic stages of new product design, CI Medical can provide a full range of creative problem solving techniques. One such example is our exclusive Silicone Radiopaque® ink marking system which enables adhesion to implantable silicone medical devices. Historically, most materials bond poorly to silicone due to the low surface energy of the elastomer. This is further exacerbated when Radiopaque® fillers developed by CI Medical are added to the base ink material to provide radio opacity. To address this challenge, CI Medical developed a Radiopaque® ink which uses a NuSil Technology formulated heat curable binder designed exclusively for them. This binder, when combined with CI Medical's proprietary Radiopaque® ink formulation, not only adheres permanently to a device's silicone surface, but also allows the silicone to retain its natural flexibility. This innovative new ink system provides the Radiopaque® qualities which allow surgeons to track and/or "read" those devices after they have been implanted within a patient's body. Coupled with fluoroscopy, Radiopaque® ink provides surgeons complete visibility of marked medical device components implanted beneath the skin or deep within the body. Such "x-ray vision" may be required by surgeons for purposes such as proper device positioning and/or device identification. Implantable devices already utilizing Radiopaque® ink technology by CI Medical include pacemakers and chemotherapy ports, as well as catheters. Additional applications include fabrics used in stenting and spinal procedures. Custom formulations of CI's Radiopaque® ink have been successfully developed for use on a broad list of substrate materials, including, most recently, silicone.
CI Medical Production Facility Promotes Advanced Medical Printing Technology
Our Medical Printing company operates state-of-the-art, computerized pad printing equipment within in a 20,000sf clean, environmentally-controlled production facility. On-site plasma gas pretreatment, specialty medical grade inks and our developed ingenuity enable CI Medical to print on such "unprintable" substrates as FEP, PTFE, Silicone, Polyurethane, PP, PE, and Delrin. Automated state of the art equipment, such as customized MS 500 medical pad printing machines that our engineering department jointly developed with Microprint, provide unrivalled capabilities and flexibility to our medical pad printing services. These customized MS 500's provide versatility to print many different sizes and shapes of medical device components, multi-color printing capabilities and automatic pad cleaning between cycles which ensures the most precise, consistent markings possible on difficult medical device components such as catheters, medical grade heat shrink, and medical grade fabrics to list a few.
By developing new tools, designing new medical pad printing equipment and devising innovative medical pad printing techniques, we are actively advancing the technology of medical device printing. Our engineers continually work with equipment manufacturers to solve common medical pad printing challenges, while increasing production efficiency and speed through proprietary modifications in equipment. As a direct result, catheter OEMs can now expect the highest degree of precision and crispness in the printed image, guaranteed consistency between job lots, quicker turnaround times and higher yields.
CI Medical's niche volume market ranges from the prototype stage of new product development through full production runs into the millions.