A Baltimore company that provides custom materials for a wide variety of industries is launching a major expansion, adding a new 28,000-square-foot manufacturing plant that could eventually employ over 100 people in the Pigtown neighborhood.
The planned new facility for manufacturing company Materic will open with around 60 staff members, company officials said. The announcement comes soon after Materic, an Early Charm portfolio company, earned a $2.7 million grant from the Department of Energy to develop an innovative 3D printing technique to create a new type of ceramic packaging for electronics. The company also produces a type of yarn that can be used to create a battery-free motion sensor for textiles, heat-reflecting face paint and other unique materials.
"We're going to design the materials based on what the engineers need, as opposed to forcing the design engineers to use the old materials that are available," CEO Ken Malone said.
The increased demand for custom manufacturing necessitates large pieces of equipment that cannot fit inside the current Materic office at 1100 Wicomico St., he said. Malone chose Pigtown because many of the buildings in the area are set up for manufacturing and the location is close to a highly skilled workforce.
To allow for even more growth, Materic is partnering with health care accelerator the LaunchPort in City Garage. The partnership gives Materic access to a "good manufacturing practice" facility, which is often recommended for companies creating medical devices or pharmaceuticals.
Materic had to turn away many companies because they could not adhere to the standard GMP practices, something that will now change because of the partnership with LaunchPort, Malone said.
LaunchPort Managing Partner Bob Storey said the ongoing trend toward personalized medicine requires the customized materials Materic can provide.
Some products that the partnership, currently focused on 3D printing, could produce include automatically correct models of a heart or other body parts for surgeons to prepare for surgery, and new materials for facial reconstruction. Traditionally, facial reconstruction is done through the bones of a cadaver or by cutting bones out of a different part of the body.
Now, Storey said researchers are working on creating custom materials to make something more identical to a human face.
Similar to Materic, LaunchPort is also expanding its manufacturing capabilities. The medical technology accelerator recently added another 5,000 square feet of space for additional manufacturing facilities. Storey said the company can now fit around six more startups in its City Garage location.
