What is the most sustainable catheter we could design from scratch today?

Damian Carr, founder of Eyedea MedTech Education and author of the Catheter R&D Handbook, joins me for a full case study. We break down how catheters are built today, why the process is still manual and fluoropolymer-heavy, and what a modern reel-to-reel line would look like.

We cover PFAS-free liners, UHMWPE, dynamic co-extrusion, same-polymer designs that can be recycled, and the cost reality: 20 to 25% of today's cost at five times the output once the line runs. Damian is clear that there is no one-to-one replacement for fluoropolymers, so the job is to match the property the application actually needs.

We also talk about the human side. The "point of no return" in the operating room, and why engineers need to sit with surgeons before they design the next device.

This episode is sponsored by Masterflex Group.
Masterflex | Schlauchhersteller | Schläuche und Verbindungen

Do you enjoy this podcast? Then subscribe, rate it on your platform, and join the discussion on LinkedIn! Your feedback and comments help us improve the podcast and bring you relevant topics. Let’s form a better world with plastics!

If you are a Medtech company struggling to make your devices more sustainable, let’s talk—BOOK A CALL HERE.

You can also check our Youtube Channel with lots of free trainings and resources here: Lucas R. Pianegonda - YouTube

Website: www.gradical.ch

Can bio-based plastic move past the nice story and scale in regulated MedTech?

Tim Wagler is Commercial Director EMEA for Braskem's I'm green bio-based portfolio, polyethylene made from sugarcane instead of fossil feedstock. Braskem just launched an I'm green bio-based medical grade.

In this episode:
- What "physical content" bio-based means and how it differs from mass balance
- Why fossil prices are spiking and bio-based is no longer the expensive option
- The supply and land-use question, and why sugarcane uses 0.03% of Brazil's land today
- Why bio-based is not biodegradable, and the claims you can actually make
- Where a drop-in bio-based polyethylene fits in medical and pharma

CONNECT WITH TIM
Tim Wagler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-wagler-891436a4/
Braskem I'm green: https://www.braskem.com/imgreen/landingpage

ABOUT THE PODCAST
MedTech Sustainability by Design is the Gradical podcast on choosing better plastics and building better medical devices.
Book a free consultation: https://calendly.com/lucas-pianegonda-gradical/discovery-call-gradical
Gradical: https://www.gradical.ch

Do you enjoy this podcast? Then subscribe, rate it on your platform, and join the discussion on LinkedIn! Your feedback and comments help us improve the podcast and bring you relevant topics. Let’s form a better world with plastics!

If you are a Medtech company struggling to make your devices more sustainable, let’s talk—BOOK A CALL HERE.

You can also check our Youtube Channel with lots of free trainings and resources here: Lucas R. Pianegonda - YouTube

Website: www.gradical.ch

How does a company with 120,000 colleagues and 500,000 products put a number on its carbon footprint and actually act on it?

Matthew Yamatin is Global Director Sustainability at Thermo Fisher Scientific. He built the corporate sustainability program from scratch after joining in 2022 and now runs it across eight business groups.

In this episode:

- The scalable method Thermo Fisher uses to calculate product carbon footprints across half a million products

- Why mass balance is the only realistic path to non-fossil plastics in a regulated industry

- How biogenic carbon accounting actually works, and where the greenwashing debate sits

- Why bio-based plastics stay tied to the oil price, and what it takes to decouple them

- How to keep a sustainability program simple enough to move

If you work in sustainability, procurement, or product development in life sciences or medtech, this gives you a model you can copy.

Connect with Matthew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewyamatin/

Thermo Fisher Scientific: https://www.thermofisher.com

00:00 How a 120,000-person company tackles sustainability at scale

01:16 The shampoo aisle problem

06:21 Inside Thermo Fisher

12:43 Scope 1, 2, 3 and the GHG Protocol

15:23 PCF vs CCF

17:50 The scalable PCF method

24:21 Why mass balance is the only scalable path

30:27 Biogenic carbon explained

40:59 Why bio-based costs more

44:10 Building a program from scratch

49:33 Find your North Star KPI

55:14 Closing

Do you enjoy this podcast? Then subscribe, rate it on your platform, and join the discussion on LinkedIn! Your feedback and comments help us improve the podcast and bring you relevant topics. Let’s form a better world with plastics!

If you are a Medtech company struggling to make your devices more sustainable, let’s talk—BOOK A CALL HERE.

You can also check our Youtube Channel with lots of free trainings and resources here: Lucas R. Pianegonda - YouTube

Website: www.gradical.ch