LEE — Boyd Technologies has formed a strategic partnership with another company that is designed to significantly expand its capacity to manufacture its single-use assembly business, a market that has grown exponentially since the COVID-19 pandemic struck last year.
The project, which is underway, calls for the advanced materials and technology company that makes medical devices and products for the life sciences to invest more than $5 million to expand its clean room manufacturing footprint, purchase new capital equipment and add 30 more employees to its 70-member workforce over the next two years. The first phase of new equipment arrived this summer; the second phase is expected to arrive in 2022.
CEO Stephen Boyd declined to identify his company's strategic partner, except to say it is a global company that has an office in Boston and is a longtime customer of Boyd Technologies. Boyd also referred to the project as "one of the most important partnerships" in the family-owned, privately held company's 42-year history.
CEO Stephen Boyd declined to identify Boyd's strategic partner, except to say it is a global company that has an office in Boston and is a longtime customer of Boyd Technologies, which has been making single-use assemblies for the past three or four years.
Boyd also referred to the project as "one of the most important partnerships" in the family-owned, privately held company's 42-year history.
"This is a strategic investment that we've made in the growth and strategy of the business," said Boyd, who also chairs the nonprofit Berkshire Innovation Center's board of directors. "In this case, the investment is scale to the opportunity. ... It will allow us to move at a faster pace and further deepens the bench and the services that we provide to our customers ... additional tools in the tool shed."
Boyd provides growth services to biomedical companies that are commercializing breakthrough technologies. By using these services, those companies can accelerate their product design, development and manufacturing initiatives, and launch new products safely and effectively.
Single-use assemblies allow these items to be made faster and cheaper, lessen the risk of cross-contamination and save on energy costs. These products are used in bioprocessing — a biological process used in the creation of a material or a product, for drugs and therapies, and for medical device applications like blood, intravenous and transfusion bags.
"There's a whole migration in the biotech and medical device [industry] where single-use is increasingly being adopted because they help manage the risk and productivity," Boyd said.
Single-use assembly activities make up more than 30 percent of Boyd's overall business, according to Boyd. He said the market for the single-use assembly business is expected to grow by almost $32 million worldwide by 2025 and by 12 percent annually.
Marketsandmarkets.com, which provides research on emerging opportunities for companies, projects the worldwide market for single-use assemblies to increase from $2.2 billion to $6.3 billion in U.S. dollars by 2026. The global pharmaceutical company Merck recently built a $30 million single-use assembly production unit at its life sciences center in France.
A bioprocessing unit manufactured by Boyd. Bioprocessing is a biological process used in the creation of a material or a product, for drugs and therapies, and for medical device applications like blood, intravenous and transfusion bags.
"There are a couple of factors why biotech is taking off," Boyd said. "The industry is a little over 50 years old; it's relatively young. If you think about it, when we were kids, biotech was something on 'Star Trek.' Now, it's on Main Street. They're building cellular therapies. Personalized medicine is here and is being practiced regularly."
Like many businesses, Boyd pivoted quickly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the state's economy in March 2020. It was one of the first state manufacturers to be involved with the governor's command center, which formed the Manufacturing Emergency Response Team, and temporarily shifted some company activities outside normal business operations to help make up for the then-shortage in personal protective equipment. Also, the company helped its biotechnology partners that were developing treatments and vaccines for large-scale production.
Boyd Technologies is featured in the documentary film series "Project Frontline," which provides a look at how municipal officials and private industry leaders in Massachusetts initially responded to the pandemic.
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