After a long history of injection moulding for the automotive industry, Oxfordshire-based White Horse Plastics (WHP) (www.whitehorseplastics.co.uk) is extending its reach into the ‘med-tech’ sector with the tooling and manufacture of luer connectors, which are used for leak-free connections on medical and laboratory instruments.

Its ISO 13485 qualification (gained last year) enables the company to market its manufacturing abilities to the medical-manufacturing supply chain.

Innovation consultancy PDD, based in London, was asked by an international client for four design variants of a luer device — three straight and the other Y-shaped.

Drawings and CAD data were supplied to WHP, together with a materials specification, and the company finalised the design for multi-cavity tooling suitable for future high-volume production.

After an initial assessment by PDD and its client, the parts were produced by WHP in a medical grade of polycarbonate for final validation studies.

Project manager Dave Eyles said: “Tight tolerances were demanded for these intricate medical parts.

“We moulded, assembled and ultrasonically welded them — two mouldings and a silicone bellows insert — in-house in a Class 10,000 clean-room.”