Nolato expands medical moulding in Hungary

Strong healthcare market growth has prompted Swedish injection moulder Nolato to expand manufacturing capacity at its medical products division plant at Mosonmagyaróvár in north western Hungary.

In addition, the company’s industrial division is launching a new small manufacturing plant in the Prahova district of southern Romania to mould products for the hygiene sector.

The start-up of the unit was carried out at Nolato’s Hungarian factory and the company is transferring the operation to the Romanian site to increase capacity so that it will be closer to the customer, Nolato reported.

Torekov, Sweden-based Nolato is investing €7m to broaden the product range at the Hungarian facility. The project involves the conversion of its existing warehouse to clean room moulding space to make products such as disposable plastic components for dialysis machines.

The polymer systems developer and manufacturer is constructing a new 3,700 m2 automated warehouse facility at the plant. Production in the new moulding area is set to start by early 2013 and the project will lead to the overall addition of 50 employees to the 400-strong plant workforce, Hungary’s MTI news agency quoted Nolato director Norbert Meleg as announcing.

Nolato, which has received EU grant aid to the tune of €1.4m for the scheme, is focusing on the production of plastic parts for high tech medical equipment.

The Swedish injection moulder reported “good growth” for its medical and industrial products divisions for the first nine months of 2011, but its telecoms offshoot Nolato Telecom continued to see “weak volumes”.

Nolato Medical increased its sales against the same period last year by 9% to more than €159m. Its operating income for the period was just over €19m. “Volumes remained good during the quarter and in line with market growth,” commented Nolato president and CEO Hans Porat.

Last year, the Swedish group, which has a total workforce of some 7,500, recorded annual sales worth almost €371m. It has other production plants in China, India, the US and Sweden.