TE Connectivity Uses 3D Printing to Cut Catheter Manufacturing Costs

TE Connectivity, the Swiss-American connector and sensor manufacturer, has developed a new additive manufacturing process for catheter shafts. The company's Advanced Technology Group at its PROPELUS Prototype Center in Galway, Ireland now prints directly onto rotating catheters rather than building them as separate parts and assembling them later. The result uses less material, takes less time, and gives engineers more design freedom.

Why Catheters Are Hard to Manufacture

Catheters are not simple tubes. They vary in wall thickness, length, and material along their length because different sections need different stiffness, flexibility, or lubricity. Traditional manufacturing builds the shaft and then applies polymer jackets, coatings, and reinforcements in multiple steps. Each step adds cost and creates opportunities for variation.

TE's process deposits material onto the catheter as it rotates, which means the company can vary thickness and material properties continuously along the shaft. The process is faster because it skips several assembly steps, and it wastes less material because there is no need to machine away excess stock.

Beyond Cost: New Design Possibilities

The more interesting implication is design freedom. By printing on the catheter itself, TE can embed sensors between layers, deposit conductive traces, or add strain gauges at specific locations. Shape memory materials could be printed in zones that bend or hold shape in response to body temperature. The company sees this as a paradigm shift in how catheters are conceived, not just how they are made.

Senior vice president Pat Duane put it plainly: additive manufacturing has the potential to expand design possibilities, accelerate development, and support the future of catheter manufacturing. Medical engineering fellow Bernard McDermott went further, saying the process could significantly reduce product costs, simplify supply chains, and have a positive environmental impact.

A Company With Decades of AM Experience

TE has been using 3D printing since 1987, when Rob Zubrickie introduced it to the company and remained its 3D printing manager for 30 years. That kind of institutional memory matters. A lot of companies treat additive manufacturing as a new initiative. At TE, it is a capability that has been refined across generations of machines and materials.

Previous projects include elastomeric seals for harsh environments and a 3D printed motorcycle. The catheter work sits within that same tradition: develop a specific process for a specific need, then let the lessons spread across the business.

What to Watch

TE has not announced volume production timelines. The process is currently at the prototype center stage, which means it could take years to work through medical device regulatory pathways. But if it scales, the impact goes beyond TE. Other medical device firms could adopt similar rotation-based deposition for stents, guidewires, or any tubular implant that needs graded properties along its length.

Catheter manufacturing has been laborious and incremental for decades. A printing process that removes assembly steps and adds design freedom is exactly the kind of change the medical device industry needs.