Junkosha announced today that it plans to double production capacity to meet shortages of PTFE liners and FEP-based heat shrink for catheter manufacturers.

Both OEMs and contract manufacturers in the catheter space are stressed from shortages in the global supply of vital components, according to the Japanese maker of sophisticated fluoropolymer application technologies.

“We believe this capacity expansion will help secure the supply of increased orders from existing customers and many new ones,” said Joe Rowan, president and CEO of Junkosha’s U.S. and Europe operations.

“We will see incremental increases in capacity in early 2022 with a larger impact in the second half of 2022. We are not only targeting our core business of smaller neurovascular and cardiovascular applications but also larger size vessel opportunities such as structural heart.”

Kazuhiko Arai, director of operations of the Junkosha Group, said the company was moving quickly to boost capacity, leveraging existing infrastructure in Japan. New equipment is going online at the company’s Kasama Operations Center. “Going forward, it is our intention to add capabilities close to our valued U.S. and EU customers as we consolidate our commitment to international markets.”