Londonderry manufacturer’s material used in Moderna packaging

Textiles Coated International’s film production room in Londonderry.

Textiles Coated International of Londonderry, a manufacturer of fluoropolymer films, is yet another New Hampshire company playing a key role in the Covid-19 vaccine supply chain.

The company is manufacturing and supplying critical materials for packaging that facilitates transport and storage of the Moderna vaccine, key ingredients of which are being manufactured at Lonza Biologics’’ Portsmouth facility.

“We are very proud of our involvement in this project, helping to ensure that packaging for the vaccine is strong, pure and reliable,” said CEO John Tippett.

The TCI material “had already been qualified prior to the pandemic, so we were able to respond quickly to build on that and ramp up production,” he said, adding, “the concept of the product actually began a few years ago based on the needs of other industries that require a similar level of purity and reliability,” said John Tippett, CEO of TCI.

According to Tippett, TCI initiated a campaign over the past decade to manufacture materials and products using high-quality fluoropolymer films for the military, medical, aerospace, oil and gas, semiconductor, electrical and food industries. Some of the products require multi-year qualification periods, with numerous trial shipments and sampling. The qualification process of a single product can often cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Tippett praised the support of the New Hampshire Manufacturing Partnership in helping TCI work through those processes. He said that early in the development of the products the NHMEP provided the company with an ISO grant and training for ISO 9000 certification to assist in the qualification process.

“The assistance from MEP and the state of New Hampshire was invaluable”, said Tippett. “Without the core ISO certification, it was impossible to find companies who would consider us for multi-year qualifications in challenging applications. Once this certification and traceability was in place, it gave us a very strong base to build from for supplying products to the medical and other industries that require sterile products.”