PFAS in MedTech: What You Need to Do Now (Swiss Medtech special, with Martin Scheringer and Arne Jaksch)

Yeah.

So two things that I would like to add.

You know, PFAS also go under the common name of, uh, forever chemicals.

This is usually what, uh, boulevard, uh, newspapers are using, forever chemicals, because, you know, they have a very high persistence.

And, you know, that definition of, you know, it has carbon chains and fluoro bonded to it, it's a very broad definition.

So I think this is like fifteen thousand substances, and you have very broad categories of PFAS, so we're talking about a, a very high number of substances with also, you know, different properties.

So this makes the, the discussion a lot more complex.

Thank you for this, for this, Lukas.

Arne, maybe to you.

It-- I mean, we have just heard from Lukas, we are talking about chemicals that will stay in the environment for a very long time.

All of us have heard about, you know, jackets or skis who have been waxed with PFAS.

In the MedTech industry, do PFAS really, uh, play a role or, or how and why is the MedTech industry affected by this whole discussion?

Well, um, depending on which, uh, organization you believe in and which, um, statistics you believe in the, in, in the release, which release statistics you believe in, the MedTech is the third or the fifth biggest com- uh, biggest complex of bringing PFAS into the environment and especially also directly into humans.

So, um, we use PFAS very widely.

Uh, the reasons why we use PFAS very widely is, um, what Martin has said already.

The properties, they are highly stable.

They are resistant to temperature.

They are chemically very stable.

Um, they have low surface tensions, and because of all those properties, they have a really very good biocompatibility, and because of that really very good biocompatibility, we have a tendency in the MedTech to use those materials without giving it a second thought in this case.

So this is the reason why we use them very broadly and in, uh, in huge applications.

And then the other thing is that we are not only using that in the finished product, so in the medical device which we are putting out onto the market at the end and, and putting them for the, for the use of the patient out there, but we also have the problem that we like to use those materials in our manufacturing processes.

So it starts already with your water processing in this case.

So somewhere drinking water is coming in and you need to process this to have, uh, distilled water or pharmaceutical grade water.

You have it in your piping systems because Teflon piping is, uh, kind of the, the gold standard in, in, in pipes and, uh, in, in transporting this water, which you then need for your cleaning applications, which you need for cooling applications, uh, and so on.

Um, you have, um, because of the properties, uh, as foaming, as foaming and antifoaming agents, uh, in your cutting and cooling fluids.