For three decades, Pepin Manufacturing Inc. has helped hundreds of medical device OEMs with offering a turn key manufacturing solution for their custom electrode, sensor or stick-to-skin wearable. Leveraging our experience with producing TENS electrodes, we have the right manufacturing equipment, processes and engineering expertise to produce any custom electrode, while meeting the customer’s timelines, budget and volumes. Additionally, we have long-term relationships with industry-leading raw material suppliers to help recommend the right materials for your application.

Reach out to discuss your application and learn how our medical electrode development and manufacturing capabilities can serve your needs.

Electrode Development — The Basics

We manufacture next-generation electrodes and sensors built to each customer’s specifications and desired application. Our team can manufacture custom electrodes and body-worn sensors utilizing the latest medical tapes, adhesives, hydrogels, films and release liners.

Pepin Manufacturing has an extensive network of medical adhesive coaters that provide access to both short-term and long-term wear skin-contacting adhesives (up to 28 days), along with low-trauma removal options for fragile skin. We’re equipped to handle small-run functional prototyping, all the way to mass manufacturing in the millions with our roll-to-roll rotary die cutting equipment.

Solving Challenges with Body-worn Sensors

The medical electrodes and body-worn sensors we manufacture allow for ongoing patient monitoring and/or electrical stimulation in a clinical setting. While these devices improve patient care, they also present unique design challenges for OEMs, which Pepin can solve. Specialized pressure-sensitive medical adhesives and purpose-built topcoats are necessary to ensure patient comfort, conformability to the skin and durability when producing custom OEM wearables. At Pepin Manufacturing, we can recommend the right raw materials to ensure the final product meets the performance requirements of the customer including wear time, adhesion to skin and impedance.

Key factors Pepin Manufacturing considers:

• Adhesion to Skin
• Wear Time
• Impedance Requirements
• Environmental Factors
• Repositionability
• Movement that may displace the device
• Moisture from perspiration or bathing
• Various Skin Types

As a turnkey body-worn sensor and medical electrode manufacturer we provide:

• Material sampling and sourcing
• Trial runs
• Process improvement and DFM recommendations
• 3rd party sterilization & validation services (when required)

As specialized custom medical electrode manufacturers, we contract manufacture state-of-the-art wearable sensors built to the specifications our customers desire.

We’ve manufactured custom body-worn sensors & electrodes for:

Respiration

Measure a patient’s breathing via body-worn, flexible sensors that can be used in the comfort of one’s home.

Heart rate

Whether you’re in the process of developing a heart rate monitor or a custom sensor used for cardiac arrhythmia detection, Pepin can provide a full suite of manufacturing solutions.

Electrical Stimulation

Being one of the market leaders in the TENS electrode manufacturing space, we can leverage our existing engineering know-how to assist with providing manufacturing solutions for various custom stimulating electrodes.

Additional Solutions

Pepin has provided design recommendations and full manufacturing solutions on electrodes and sensors used in various markets including continuous glucose monitoring (CGM), incontinence, wound healing, treatment of foot drop and stroke rehabilitation.

These sensors may be integrated into clothing, belting/straps, worn directly on the skin or connected to a medical device for healthcare, fitness, and medical biometrics.

We work with our customers across the entire development lifecycle, supporting their specific needs with secondary services such as design, fabrication, assembly, testing, and validation.

Our dedicated team of product managers focus on:

• Sourcing exotic or unique materials including conductive films, conductive inks, hydrogels and custom snaps and leads to meet your application.
• Recommending various medical-grade pressure sensitive adhesives including long-term wear, water-resistant and low-trauma solutions for both the pediatric and geriatric population.
• Process improvement and design for manufacturability.