PHAsT: the new generation of medical plastics

Nowadays, plastic is the main material in people's life.

It is cost competitive, easy to process and handle, light, and possesses a variety of different properties that make it suitable for a wide range of applications in almost every industrial sector, including the medical industry.

Over the last three decades, plastics have been used to manufacture medical devices, _in vivo_ and _in vitro_ implants, drug delivery systems, as well as hospital and laboratory equipment, and single-use disposable products.

However, two aspects of plastic materials raise questions about their widespread usage in the medical arena: their level of biocompatibility and bioresorbability in the human body, and their negative impact on the environment.

On one side, severe health problems for patients are caused by plastic medical devices not being fully biocompatible and bioresorbable, failing when undergoing mechanical or thermal stresses, and releasing toxic products while degrading in the body.

On the other hand, more than 90% of plastic materials used in the medical industry are fossil-based, contributing to carbon emissions and polluting the environment when disposed of or incinerated. Moreover, microplastic coming from non-fully biodegradable fossil-based plastics harm the environment and human life.

At PHAsT, we are ready to enable a new generation of plastic materials to address the most important needs of the medical sector.

Through a proprietary sustainable fermentation process driven by bacteria using renewable carbon sources, PHAsT is able to produce a family of natural plastic materials called polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs).

PHAs are fully biocompatible, bioresorbable in the human body without realising of toxic degradation products or microplastics, and able to offer sustainable end-of-life options as they are completely biodegradable in all environments (marine, freshwater, and soil), industrially compostable and recyclable in existing recycling facilities.

Thanks to our upscaled production process, we are able to provide a portfolio of PHAs materials with a variety of properties to offer innovative solutions to the medical market, enabling a better quality of treatments for the patients, and reducing the carbon footprint and environmental impact for medical plastic converters and end-users along the entire medical supply chain.