Nelson Laboratories acquires new building
US microbiology lab continues growth in-line with increased requirements for medical device testing
Nelson Laboratories has acquired a new building adjacent to its current facilities that will increase its capacity and enable it to install new capabilities.
The newly acquired 12,000 ft2 building is under renovation to bring it up to Nelson Laboratories’ specification. This location will be used to add additional sterilisers used in validation testing, ageing chambers for packaging testing, and additional space for testing products designed for reuse (e.g. cleaning, disinfection, and steam sterilisation of tools, kits or scopes used in hospitals). Operations will begin in May.
Established in 1985, the company has roughly doubled in size every five years and anticipates the growth trend to continue. With the newly acquired building, Nelson Labs now has more than 122,000ft2 of office and laboratory space.
Much of the company’s growth has been fuelled by increased investment in new medical technology, changes in industry guidance and increased regulatory expectations. The testing done at Nelson Labs supports the development and production of safe medical devices, tissue, drugs, cosmetics and natural products.
Reusable medical devices are not ready for the marketplace until they go through mandatory cleaning validation testing and the FDA is being stricter than ever on the type of validations that need to be performed.
“Medical device manufacturers are being asked to conduct more tests than ever before; even those that already have products out on the market are being audited for validation work,” said Michael Neilson, hospital reprocessing section leader at Nelson Laboratories.
