USMCC inks $80M deal to make glove machines for UAE | Crain's Chicago Business

Jon Asplund is a contributing reporter covering health care for Crain’s Chicago Business.

U.S. Medical Glove Co. today announced a new contract worth $80 million to help a United Arab Emirates-based corporation gear up to make its own medical and surgical exam gloves with its machines.

The company operates out of the 1.8 million-square-foot industrial site that was formerly a Motorola factory in Harvard, where it manufactures gloves and the machines and components and supplies the chemicals to make nitrile and polyisoprene gloves, both manufacturing gloves and helping others to set up production.

The agreement with Medeco Protective Safety Equipment Manufacturing, a division of Abu Dhabi Medical Devices, or ADMD, is a joint venture in which USMGC will retain a 25% ownership stake, the company said in a press release. The contract calls for USMGC to manufacture 12 glove-making machines — 10 nitrile exam glove machine lines and two polyisoprene surgical glove machine lines — for Medeco facilities in Saudi Arabia beginning in the first quarter of 2025, the release said.

USMGC said it will also supply Medeco with the raw NBR nitrile and polyisoprene made in partnership with U.S. Medical Nitrile & Polyisoprene Chemical in Honea Path, S.C., an independent division of USMGC launched in August.

The $80 million contract is the second phase of a three-phase deal between USMGC and ADMD. Earlier this year, the company sent two machine lines to ADMD's facilities in the United Arab Emirates, USMGC said in a statement. A third phase could include an expansion to 100 machine lines in Saudi Arabia and UAE serving national health care program facilities across American-allied nations in the region, the release said.

In June 2023, USMGC moved operations from Montgomery into the 350-acre former Motorola plant that had sat empty for 20 years.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company expanded its original operations and obtained funding and support from the federal government, including the U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of Health & Human Services, the Administration for Strategic Preparedness & Response and the Office of Industrial Base Management & Supply Chain. It bills itself as the only American manufacturer of everything needed to produce nitrile and polyisoprene exam gloves. It says it sells the equipment in the United States and to American allies around the world.

On its first anniversary in Harvard in June, the company said it employs hundreds of workers at the facility, including engineers, chemists, supply chain experts, welders, electricians, general laborers and other support staff. At the time, USMGC said it had 10 nitrile-glove production lines in operation and an additional 21 production lines under assembly. It's manufacturing capacity, the statement said, would be 2.48 billion nitrile gloves per year.

The company said that in the last year it has added technology including fiber lasers, robotic glove-removal and glove-layering machines and one of the largest robotic welding units in the Midwest.

"This joint venture demonstrates that the United States can be the world leader in the production of personal protective equipment," Alex Todoroki, a representative of USMGC, said in the release. "Building and expanding partnerships like these enables us to increase investments at and strengthen commitments to (the Harvard facility). Our team has revamped crucial infrastructure at the facility, including incorporating advanced 21st century technologies, such as the recent installation of microturbines for capturing clean-energy efficiencies."

Jon Asplund is a contributing reporter covering health care for Crain’s Chicago Business.

After an eight-month national search, the health system will give interim CEO Dr. Erik Mikaitis the post.

The medical device giant last approved a share repurchase program in 2021.

Abbott’s device sales have been a bright spot as the company navigates lawsuits related to infant formula products.