Medizone International (MZEI:OB MZEI:QB), a leading-edge research and development company that specializes in decontamination and sterilization systems and SMTC Corporation (Nasdaq: SMTX, TSX: SMX) ("SMTC"), a global electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider, today jointly announce a new partnership agreement to manufacture Medizone's AsepticSure™ disinfection system.
Medizone International CEO Edwin Marshall commented on the partnership agreement: "In meeting with potential manufacturing partners it was soon clear that SMTC would be a great fit for us. They are able to provide a full range of complex electronic manufacturing and integrated service solutions at their Canadian facility, including New Product Introduction (NPI) services and PCBA manufacturing and system level integration. SMTC will leverage their expertise in global Supply Chain Management services from its large network of materials suppliers, and from its strong purchasing power, in order to help drive costs and support Medizone's go-to-market plans.
"Another big plus is the fact that SMTC has manufacturing facilities in San Jose, California, Chihuahua, Mexico and Dongguan, China – a huge positive in our view, especially as we expand our geographic reach."
Marshall went on to say, "Following on from the exceptional job that ADA Innovations, our development partner, has done in bringing the technology up to its current production-ready status, and having completed final performance validation of the production prototype AsepticSure™ system at our Innovation Park, Queen's University research facilities, we're now transferring the technology to SMTC's manufacturing facility, headquartered in Toronto, Canada, in readiness for production. The initial AsepticSure™ units will be used for additional hospital and hotel testing as well as meeting delivery requirements for pre-orders received at the 2011 FIME medical purchasing show in Miami."
Dr. Michael E. Shannon, Medizone's President added, "During my years in government I had the opportunity to visit many electronic and medical device manufacturing facilities. This is one of the finest I have ever visited. Of special interest to both Ed and I is the SMTC 'Copy Exact' approach for each of their manufacturing facilities. This translates to a tremendous ability to respond to future anticipated ramp-ups in demand, in exceedingly short periods of time. Of course, their facility meets all of the necessary regulatory requirements such as ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 13485:2003 as well as IPC Class-validated lead-free process. All in all, SMTC will prove to be a great manufacturing partner for Medizone and one that clearly adds value to our company."
SMTC's John Bran, Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing added, "We're fond of saying that we're the manufacturing partner to innovators around the world'. However, seldom has that statement been truer than it is today with Medizone International and its highly eco-friendly AsepticSure™ system. We believe both of our companies see this as a 'great pairing' moving forward. This is a product which offers the world's newest and most powerful disinfection technology, which in turn offers unlimited growth potential over many market segments. As Dr. Shannon noted, SMTC is organized through our 'Copy Exact' processes to expand future production to our facilities outside of Ontario should international demand one day dictate this. We're very pleased to have been selected to support Medizone with this enormously exciting initiative and look forward to contributing to its successes, both here in North America and around the world."
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