Intertronics has published a new technical guide to help medical design, assembly, and process development engineers, along with other specialists working in medical device manufacturing, understand process, technology and regulatory considerations when it comes to adhesives in wearables. Adhesives for medical wearables: a guide outlines what medtech manufacturers need to know about adhesives in medical devices, such as regulations, biocompatibility, and process considerations.

Intertronics’ technical guide focuses on adhesives used to bond and assemble wearable medical devices including diagnostic patches, glucose or electrocardiogram (ECG) monitors, and therapeutic delivery systems. Medical design engineers, assembly engineers, process development engineers, and medical device manufacturers can learn about selecting and validating adhesives for wearable medtech.

“Wearable devices live in a tricky, messy environment: constant motion, exposure to moisture, sweat, skin oils, and the like. They are designed with complex geometries and from multiple substrate types,” said Matthew Baseley, head of Sales at Intertronics and author of Adhesives for medical wearables: a guide. “I wrote this guide to help with selecting materials for evaluation and hopefully shortening process development and the decision-making cycle. Adhesive choice for wearables affects design, validation, and manufacturing, and sometimes teams only see the problems once they are well into the program.”

The guide explores the pros and cons of commonly used adhesives, such as cyanoacrylates, silicones, and epoxies, and explains how to match adhesive chemistry to assembly processes.

The guide also presents a case study that details how a manufacturer overcame bonding challenges in its wearable fitness tracker using Born2Bond adhesives. In this case, challenges included the device being in constant skin contact, requiring sweat and odor resistance, and being made using low-surface-energy materials that made bonding difficult. Born2Bond helped the manufacturer overcome these challenges and bring its product to market.

To access the full guide, visit the Intertronics website.