STERIS Corporation

What they make

1 input STERIS Corporation supplies

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Where they make it

2 facilities

Intelligence

What's known

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• Did you know2023

  STERIS's Applied Sterilization Technologies (AST) contract sterilization division simultaneously sterilizes: medical devices before hospital use (surgical gloves, catheters, implants, sutures — the medical device supply chain); pharmaceutical products and drug delivery components (the pharmaceutical manufacturing supply chain); and some food contact materials and packaging (food safety supply chain). All three supply chains share the same STERIS EO sterilization facility network. When EPA began enforcing stricter EO emission limits at commercial sterilization facilities starting in 2020, the regulatory risk to STERIS's EO operations simultaneously threatened the sterile medical device supply chain (implants could not be sterilized without EO), the pharmaceutical supply chain (some drug packaging requires EO sterilization), and the spice industry (EO sterilization is the primary pathogen-reduction method for imported spices in the US). Three critical supply chains — medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and food spices — are connected through EO sterilization facility operations that EPA and community health advocates simultaneously seek to restrict. STERIS's facilities are at the intersection of life-saving medical supply chain necessity and community cancer risk from EO emissions.

  US Environmental Protection Agency ↗

• Origin2023

  STERIS Corporation was founded in 1985 in Mentor, Ohio as Innovative Medical Technologies, developing a new process for low-temperature endoscope sterilization (SYSTEM 1) that used peracetic acid rather than the carcinogenic ethylene oxide (EO) that had been the only viable option for temperature-sensitive medical devices like endoscopes. The company renamed itself STERIS (from STErilization Reliability and Integrated Solutions) as it grew its hospital sterilization equipment business. STERIS was incorporated in Ireland (like Johnson & Johnson medical devices and many pharmaceutical companies) to reduce effective corporate tax rates under the OECD's pre-BEPS framework. The company grew to global leadership in healthcare sterilization through acquisitions including Isomedix (which became the Applied Sterilization Technologies / AST division offering contract sterilization services using EO, gamma irradiation, and electron beam). STERIS's EO sterilization operations — which serve the medical device industry — became a focus of US EPA air quality enforcement in 2020-2024 when community health impacts of EO emissions from commercial sterilization facilities became a regulatory priority, creating supply chain risk for the medical device industry as EPA enforcement threatened to close or constrain EO sterilization capacity.

  STERIS Corporation ↗