Demand for nonwovens used in woundcare applications is growing worldwide. Alan Osborn and Julian Ryall report
The use of nonwovens manufacturing technology to make woundcare products has always been a key part of the nonwovens sector, but increasingly one of its fastest-growing global niches is medical single-use disposables. This is partly due to legislative changes in the US; partly to hopes for fast track, permanent elimination of the European Union’s (EU) 4.3% import tariff on America nonwovens; and partly to catch-up usage in Asia, and to a lesser extent Europe, where the supplanting of long-established re-use practices appears to have barely begun.
“We look at medical nonwoven fabrics as one of the great growth opportunities for the nonwoven industry generally because single-use disposable surgical materials have been shown to be one of the leading factors to reduce HCAI (health care acquired infection),” said David Rousse, president of the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry (INDA) in Cary, North Carolina, the leading global association for the nonwoven industry. “Somebody will go into hospital to treat a cut on his head and acquire an infection that requires five days of hospitalisation. That’s bad hygiene,” he told Nonwovens Report International.
The use of single-use disposables in North America has been spurred by the Obama administration’s health care act (the Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act) which has the effect that it forces the hospital to pay for costs of HCAI and not the government insurance. “That will make the hospitals more receptive to practices reducing HCAI and more receptive to increased use of single-use disposables and that is good news for nonwovens,” said Mr Rousse. Outside of the US, opportunities for sale vary considerably, however.
“Generally, the penetration of medical nonwoven single-use disposables is quite low,” he said. “In Asia for example - outside of Japan - it’s well under 5% so there’s tremendous opportunity there for increased adoption for single-use disposables in the medical arena”.
There had been “pretty strong investment in China” in recent years, he said. In northern Europe the penetration rate was “pretty high, well above 50%, but in southern and eastern Europe it’s below 50% so there is a tremendous opportunity for growth in this category in Europe”. In the US, by contrast, the usage rate is a remarkable 99%.
Mr Rousse said there had been notable developments in manufacture recently. “Some of the barrier properties that get put on to the fabric are now put on to it in-line. It used to be that you’d make the roll of non-woven and then ship the roll to a coder and they’d put the barrier treatment on it separately. Now it’s being done as the fabric is made, that’s in-line treatment, and that’s cut the cost down and enabled much faster turnaround,” he said.
New materials are also being used in adhesives, a major factor in nonwoven wound care. At the leading US manufacturer of nonwoven wound dressings Fabrico Medical, based in Atlanta, Georgia, Craig McClenachan, sales and marketing manager, said the company was “knowledgeable on new adhesive formulations, including hydrocolloid, hydrophilic, and conductive adhesives.”
Hydrocolloid adhesives were the most “skin-friendly” adhesives available, providing a range of formulations for good adhesion, fluid absorption, and extended wear, he told Nonwovens Report International. The company worked with design engineers on applications for wound dressings, ostomy appliances, bandages, and surgical drapes.
According to a report from the market research company Global Industry Analysts (GIA) of San Jose, California, the disposable medical nonwoven market will reach $20 billion by 2017. The consultants said that growth was being influenced by demographics, as well as three significant health conditions - obesity, diabetes and an aging population. These conditions typically increased surgical procedures, and hence the demand for disposable medical products. An additional influence arose from developing world economies “where there is an ongoing overhaul not only in healthcare per se, but also in the expectations of a system and the ability to finance a higher level of care.”
However these global factors “offset the potential reduced usage of nonwovens from medical advancements related to natural orifice as well as non-invasive procedures,” said GIA. The spread of infections—whether from hospitals or surgical sites - continued to rise and this was “a concern both for the patient and for healthcare establishments”, it said.
One of the major European companies in the industry, Freudenberg Nonwovens, based at Weinheim in Germany, claims to have been instrumental in bringing about the transition to functional nonwovens as the base material for wound care. “We are presenting innovations in advanced wound care, where the wound environment must be kept moist, at INDEX 14,” said Sabine Duttenhofer, Freudenberg director of global communications.
In the past knitted fabrics were mainly used to care for wounds but today it was hard to imagine wound care without nonwovens, said Ms Duttenhofer. A major innovation introduced by the company has been the use of chitosan fibers. “In combination with hydroactive nonwovens, this biopolymer brings new perspectives for the healing process and is already proving its worth in practice,” said Dr Oliver Heneric, business segment management Medical Europe Freudenberg. “That makes us the market leader in ostomy applications, for example, and we are also pressing ahead with the latest developments in transdermal applications in the USA.”
A leader in the use of fibres in nonwoven wound care fabric is the Grimsby, UK-based company Technical Absorbents (owned since 2007 by Blue Star Fibres of Beijing, China). Dave Hill, business development manager, said that the company’s specific market was in advancement care where moist care dressings were used to absorb the exudate from more severe wounds. “Our product is based on a super absorbent fibre technology derived from acrylic acid and similar to that used in babies’ nappies - we make a fibrous version,” he said.
“One property of this super absorbent fibre (SAF) is that it is more absorbent than cotton by an order of magnitude – when cotton is squeezed after absorbing water it will lose 80% of the water. Our fibre will absorb 200 grams of water and will retain more than 180 grams of it,” he said.
The SAF is processed into nonwovens applications where it has several advantages over powder-based materials, Mr Hill said. “With the competitive technology, the powder has to be contained in a bag or heavily bonded to keep it in and the more you do that, the more your reduce your assets,” he said.
Moist wound care dressings were designed to present proper moisture conditions around the wound, without actual wetting. “The integration of an SAF-based fabric results in the rapid uptake and retention of exudates from the infected area. These conditions are essential for creating an optimum environment to aid the healing process and prevent further bacterial growth,” he said. This was particularly important when used in the treatment of wounds with high exudates such as chronic wounds and burns.
As a wound care fabric, the SAF was “highly absorbent, highly retentive, easy to form to the wound itself, and very comfortable and that’s where fibre scores over powder”. Mr Hill said there was significant world-wide scope for use of this kind of material. “Many companies have realised potential in the medical nonwovens field, and developing countries are beginning to follow suit. Countries such as China and India are looking to develop higher quality products for the advanced wound care market,” he said.
In Asia’s largest developed country Japan, demand is booming for manufacturers of nonwovens for the domestic medical sector, although the big companies are fully aware that this surge in demand for high-end wound-care products is likely to be brief.
“Many companies and organisations are buying in bulk at the moment because of the [planned] increase in the consumption tax from April 1,” said Tomoyuki Kawamura, a spokesman for Osaka-based Asahi Kasei Fibers Corp.
“We have seen demand increase as end-users stockpile inventory,” he said. The tax rate - the Japanese equivalent of VAT - is to rise from 5% to 8% on April 1, the start of the Japanese fiscal year.
Analysts say it is likely that demand will decline across all sectors after the start of the new fiscal year, but that means there has been a spike in demand in the run-up to the tax hike.
“We feel the economy is getting better, which means that as a manufacturer of nonwoven materials that we sell to be made into finished products, business has been good,” Kawamura said.
Japanese firms produce some of the most advanced medical-sector nonwovens in the world, with Asahi Kasei's Bemliese among the best-regarded.
The product is the world’s only cellulosic continuous-filament nonwoven and has a number of special features, including superior liquid absorbency, thermal stability, ultralow lint generation and biodegradability.