Medical plastics have never been this smart

Material innovations that enhance patient safety and simplify medical applications

25.11.2025

How do you create plastics that can save lives?

At the family-owned company Spang & Brands, this question has been answered for over 100 years – with ingenuity, precision, and passion.

Jürgen Mader – part of the company for 45 years – shows how ideas become functional plastics that have long been indispensable in modern medicine: An elastic PEEK that gently cushions wires used in heart surgery, reducing patient pain. A balloon that makes it visible whether ventilation is truly secure.

Or a dilator that no longer requires additional gel – saving crucial seconds when every moment counts.

But behind these innovations lies more than just technology: decades of experience, a spirit of experimentation, and the conviction that every detail matters when it comes to patient well-being.

With Ricarda Echterdiek, who joined the management board in 2025 as the fourth generation of the family, the company looks ahead: digitalization, sensor technology, and AI are becoming tools for a new era of material development.

Have fun watching the exclusive COMPAMED video report!

The video as text - transcript of the report

Offtext Intro

Plastics for medical applications are becoming increasingly functional. We show practical examples of how ideas for new composite materials are developed and how they improve medical care.

Spang & Brands has specialized in medical technology for over 50 years, combining toolmaking, injection molding, and assembly. Jürgen Mader has been involved in development and production for over 45 years. He explains some of the unique features of plastic products and how they improve everyday life in medical care:

Interview Jürgen Mader

Finding suitable materials for medical applications is not easy. We need specialized materials. We have worked with several compounders and developed clear ideas about materials that are suitable for sterilization — not just ordinary plastics, but plastics that offer additional functional properties.

Take PEEK, for example. It is widely used in medicine as a metal substitute because of its high rigidity. We currently need to use PEEK as a permanent implant material. However, in this case, it must also be elastic. We achieved this through a modified manufacturing process: a wire used in heart surgery is coated with PEEK in its elastomeric state.

Offtext

For patients, this means less pain because the elastic PEEK cushions the metal wire like foam.

This balloon shows medical professionals whether a trachea seal is actually tight, preventing foreign bodies from entering the lungs. Previously, this was not visible. This simplifies monitoring and increases the safety of ventilation.

What was the challenge here?

Interview Jürgen Mader

There is no plastic material that exhibits a consistent restoring property, regardless of the degree of expansion. Currently, whether the balloon is inflated to 150 mm or only minimally, the restoring pressure remains constant.

Offtext

This dilator helps to insert a tracheostomy tube during a tracheotomy. In order to mold this product from a single piece, the team was able to greatly simplify a very complex manufacturing process.

Interview Jürgen Mader

We decided to produce this part as a single piece using the injection molding process and to integrate certain features directly into it.
The material used is polyurethane, which is not an easy material to work with. The special aspect here is that we developed a compound that eliminates the need for additional hydrophilization.

Offtext

The dilator no longer needs to be coated with silicone gel. The surface becomes gel-like on its own when inserted into the throat. This saves vital time because the specialist no longer has to change gloves to apply the gel.

Customers who have their products developed or improved by Spang und Brands rely on the experience of this family-owned company. Ricarda Echterdiek joined the management team in July 2025 – the fourth generation to do so.

Interview Ricarda Echterdiek

One aspect our customers particularly value is our genuine passion for our work. Many of our employees have been with us for years, developing deep expertise and experience. Our customers’ products often stay on the market for decades, which involves complex regulatory requirements and approvals. That’s why they rely on partners and suppliers who are stable, dependable, and committed for the long run.

Digitalization and automation are major focus areas for us. AI applications — whether in quality control or in monitoring processes in the tools through sensor technology — are factors that will become increasingly important in the future.

What drives us, ultimately, is keeping the patient in mind and asking: How can we develop solutions to provide better care for the patient?

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Smiling woman with brown hair - Natascha Mörs; Copyright: beta-web

Author: Natascha Mörs | Editorial team COMPAMED-tradefair.com

Multimedia editor Natascha Mörs has been writing and filming for COMPAMED.de for almost 20 years. She enjoys providing insights into the details of materials, miniaturized components and talking to suppliers of all the components that make medical technology possible.