Newburyport, Mass.-based UFP Technologies Inc. has begun shipping product from its new medical manufacturing operation in Tijuana, Mexico.

The 84,000-square-foot facility is its first in the city and will serve medtech customers, Stu Krupnick, director of marketing at UFP, told Plastics News in an emailed statement.

UFP also purchased equipment for the plant, "to support specific customers," Krupnik said.

"Many of our … customers were asking for near-shore low-cost-country options for some of the products we manufacture for them," he said. "Tijuana was a clear choice as it placed us in close proximity to many of those customers and it is considered a hub in Mexico for medical device manufacturers.

"The Tijuana facility complements our other plants in Costa Rica and Dominican Republic," Krupnik added. "Along with our acquisition of Advant Medical in Ireland, our customers now have numerous geographic manufacturing options for their products."

UFP declined to comment on the cost of the investment.

"As we continue to build out our manufacturing platform, a state-of-the-art medical manufacturing facility in Tijuana will be highly valuable to our customers looking for near-shore manufacturing options that maintain the level of quality and innovation they expect from UFP MedTech," Jeffrey Bailly, chairman, CEO, and president of UFP, said in a June 28 news release.

The facility will feature clean room and clean space medical device manufacturing and assembly. It's expected to be ISO 13485 certified by the fourth quarter of 2022 and to include capabilities like RF welding, thermoforming, and catheter and guidewire dispenser coil production.

UFP Technologies designs and manufacturers components, subassemblies, products, and packaging primarily for the medical market. The company also serves customers in the aerospace and defense, automotive, consumer, electronics, and industrial markets.

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