Enhance your prototyping process for consumables with Protowerk

Today, many development projects for life science and in-vitro diagnostic applications have a need for early prototyping and a requirement for high quality micro and/or nanostructures. Quality is of the utmost importance, but so is the choice of an appropriate design and materials to facilitate mass manufacturing at a later stage. In view of this, the early involvement of injection molding companies like STRATEC is becoming an ever more important

factor to ensure a smooth transition from early prototypes to mass manufacturing later on. Of course, the regulatory documentation requirements for in vitro diagnostic devices render time and cost-efficient early prototyping almost impossible. To broach this issue, STRATEC now offers high-quality early prototyping, which is unencumbered by the need for full regulatory oversight.

WHY PROTOWERK?

Reliable Prototyping

All processes used, including mastering, molding, coating, bonding and assembly, are well within our know-how

Smooth Transfer

Typical issues when transferring from other prototyping techniques such as PDMS and/or printing or hot embossing to development and serial production are avoided

Drives Innovation

Our Protowerk uses standard processes and is also able to innovate in areas such as testing new materials, bonding methods, or coatings

Example of Protowerk

Gold medical disc showing the different ph levels that can be tested with it

In the large majority of cases, we suggest working with a disc format so that our mastering and injection molding techniques create parts with this initial format. To accommodate your required footprint for the microfluidic chip, milling is the prototyping method of choice, generating the outer contour and through holes for your fluid connectors. Depending on the requirements of your application, we use solvent bonding, laser welding or PSA to create your fluidic device.

Different types of connectors are available to interface with your test setup, ranging from standard luer locks to STRATEC specific inlets. Applying these processes has achieved high-quality flowcells containing microwells – in this case, our customers successfully implemented their cell-sorting platform!

Providing an early-stage prototype can mark the beginning of a fruitful long-term collaboration with STRATEC! Our customers then typically need time to test the application and raise funds for the next development steps. We would be very pleased to support this phase with our expertise. Here, we can provide you with the data and facts you need for your business case, such as part price calculations, investment costs including planned workflow, and development effort. We would also be glad to support you with our extensive network of connections, putting you in touch with large diagnostic companies or investors – should this be of interest to you.

Returning to our customer case example: Our customer is currently applying for funds using our microfluidic device as a prototype for investor demonstrations. We wish them every success for the funding round and hope to continue the development work soon in our Development group!