Founded in 1979 as a one-man business by the current CEO David Shaw, Riverside Medical is now a different company – with 250 employees and three distinctive divisions, the company is a global market leader with its specific capabilities, a specialist in complex medical device manufacture, medical packaging solutions and contract fulfilment.
The company operates from a state-of-the-art 4,700 sq. metre manufacturing facility tailor-made specifically for the manufacturing of medical packaging and products. It houses 12 cleanrooms, each of which is either process or product specific.
Managing Director Matt Roe explains that Riverside Medical is made up of 3 distinct divisions with one common goal, to provide medical devices which are clean, sterile, and safe. The company provides both packaging machines and complete packaging line solutions.
Three divisions
“Riverside itself specialises in cleaning and sterilising medical devices, and also design and packaging for third parties. The division also manufactures peel pouches and sachets which are sold to customers who pack products in their own facilities,” he says.
In 2014, the company created its second division called Aseptic Medical Devices (AMD) which produces packaging for multiple devices used in the preparation of drugs within hospitals.
“The packaging is unique in that it is impermeable to hydrogen peroxide, made in a format designed exclusively for one application. Packed devices and combinations are available from individual units right through to packs large enough to support bulk aseptic manufacture,” Roe explains, pointing out that AMD has grown from zero in 2014 to a market leader with turnover exceeding £8 million.
The third division is Shawpak, a leading manufacturer of a unique range of packaging equipment for medical devices, including rotary thermoforming machinery, rigid blister-making equipment, and pouch machinery. Unlike traditional linear thermoformers, the Shawpak thermoforming machine uses a rotary drum to form, fill and seal the medical devices. This makes it much smaller – a clear advantage as it reduces the need for expensive clean room space.
“With Shawpak, we have developed a unique technology which enables machines to take up a smaller footprint within clean room environments. That development has been going on since 2015 and we are now selling those machines all over the world – including many in the USA, where we’ve set up a sales office to continue that growth.”
One of a kind
The uniqueness of the thermoforming is one of the factors that distinguish Riverside from others. “There is no other company which produces a machine that blister-packs products in that way,” says Roe. “A lot of our growth has been around unique, narrow web thermoforming lines, which enables us to produce tooling for blister packs for products very competitively.”
“We can offer the tooling for a better price than our major competitors because it’s a quarter of the size. That makes blister packs attractive to customers, who would have previously been put off by the initial costs.”
“We are also very vertically integrated – we have a dedicated clean room set up for ultrasonically cleaning. So, we clean, we design the packaging, we pack and then we subcontract the sterilisation with gamma irradiation or ethylene oxide gas.”
Matt Roe explains that although environmental protection is high on the company’s list of priorities, biodegradable or compostable packaging materials are very difficult to achieve with medical devices because ultimately the sterility and shelf-life of the product might be compromised.
“The primary packaging needs to be virgin as you need to have traceability, you need to know where it’s coming from, you need to know that it’s the same every time you buy it. To maintain validation for medical products you have to use stable materials which are repeatable every time you purchase. But in terms of secondary materials, such as cardboard and plastics, we are constantly looking at ways in which we can separate waste materials in order to recycle them.”
In 2019, the company invested £190,000 to have 920 solar panels fitted on two of its buildings, and 80% of the company vehicles are fully electric. “We have 15 EV chargers on site to support the electric vehicles and have introduced other measures to save electricity. Our target is to reduce our emissions by 33% by 2030,” says Roe.
Best product, best people
Roe affirms that despite the challenging market environment the company has grown significantly over the last few years. “We have two new machines being commissioned, which we have designed and built ourselves – one is a pouch line to manufacture pouches and sachets, which will be commissioned and running in September, and the other is our seventh, narrow web thermoform line which went live in August.”
Also in August, Riverside Medical opened its 12th clean room, which gives the company an additional 2300 sq. ft of Class 8 clean room production space, which will host its newest pouch machine. With the addition of both the new pouch machine and the new thermoforming line, Riverside’s production capacity will increase by more than 10%, meaning the company is able to continue to offer short lead times.
In addition to that, the company has just taken possession of a 16,000-square-foot facility just a mile down the road from the head office. The new unit will become the raw material and finished goods hub for its AMD Division. The administration and sales teams will be located here along with dedicated warehouse staff.
“We expect steep growth in the coming months, pushed by the NHS waiting list – there are currently 7.5 million people in the UK waiting for operations and this is a very important area that has been addressed by our clients. We are also getting more and more inquiries for Shawpak machines as they offer great savings with their compact size.”
In conclusion, Roe affirms that Riverside is set to meet its target of 20% growth in 2024. “This year’s turnover is forecast at £27 million, and next year we should be turning over £33 million. But it is not just about investment in capacity, it is also about our people. We are very much a company that is only as good as the people that work in it. We have the coveted ‘Investors in People’ award. We are dedicated to our workforce, making sure that we have the best people on board.”
