Working on an award winning, global design team, through a pandemic | Season 2 Episode 6

hsDNA

Martin Bakstad, the Director of the European Division for Design and Development for SteriPack, joins host Justin Starbird on the latest episode of hsDNA.

SteriPack is a contract manufacturer that helps blue-chip companies of this world and with their medical device and pharmaceutical industries. SteriPack preforms contract manufacturing services for class 1, 2, 3 devices and medical class 1, 2, 3 including molding, cleaning, and packaging that helps companies see their concepts through to commercialization and manufacturability.

Martin shared that working through the pandemic was “actually surprisingly easy. Everybody just got the status around working on Microsoft Teams and realized that there was no option to travel. Historically, we were traveling and spending a lot of time, effort and money to meet in-person. Now that there was only one option, white it can never replace a face-to-face meeting, we learned that a lot of people have also loved working from home. It cut out all the travels to and from work which made us more efficient as well.”

Recently his team was also recognized with the 2022 Gold Edison Award for their efforts on the novel Xpress Collect device to test for COVID-19.

As Martin explained, “Xpress Collect is a device that takes away the labor on the backside after testing (for COVID-19). From when the person has been tested, all the way through to a result, is what ur team has optimized with this product. It's a simple device where you take a dry-test and then you liquid without removing the swab which enables you to run high numbers through an automated system. It's novel in the terms that it revolutionized the way that the lab operates because there is literally very little manual labor involved in this.”

Listen as Justin and Martin discuss the challenges and success that came out of working with a global team to solve a pandemic issue with future plans to apply to other testing needs.