Premier Inc. and Honeywell collaborate to expand production of nitrile exam gloves
Honeywell and Premier Inc., announced a new commercial relationship dedicated to expanding the domestic production of nitrile exam gloves. This new collaboration is expected to produce at least 750 million domestically made nitrile exam gloves in the first year alone.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the supply of exam gloves has been constrained as global demand skyrocketed – exceeding production capacity by nearly 40 %. Global raw material scarcity, port closures and delays, and increased glove usage as a result of increased hospitalization rates and vaccination efforts have exacerbated ongoing shortages. As a result, Premier member hospitals reported access to exam gloves as one of their greatest product-related challenges to care for patients, with many implementing glove conservation practices and other precautionary measures to protect supply.
"Honeywell and Premier share a commitment to increase the domestic production capacity for safety solutions to help to protect American healthcare workers," said Praveen Reddy, President of Honeywell’s personal protective equipment (PPE) business. "Our N95 respirators are protecting millions of healthcare workers, and now we’re bringing our technical and supply chain management expertise to support another category of essential PPE. This relationship helps strengthen Honeywell’s position as a leading provider of healthcare and medical solutions.”
The collaboration between Premier and Honeywell is expected to expand access to domestically manufactured exam gloves for U.S. hospitals, clinics and other healthcare providers. More than 80 participating Premier member health systems have committed to purchase a certain %age of the Honeywell gloves for a period of five years. Honeywell will provide additional gloves to S2S Global, Premier’s direct sourcing subsidiary, enabling the sale of domestically produced gloves to other health systems and hospitals across the country.
For more than a decade, Premier has been a leader in direct sourcing, working with manufacturers around the globe to produce high-quality products, including those in short supply. This collaboration with Honeywell is part of Premier’s long-term strategy to drive U.S. private sector manufacturing innovation and build greater supply chain resiliency – working with members to pursue partnerships with domestic companies that specialize in critical product categories. Honeywell and Premier are also collaborating to expand access to other healthcare PPE and are including these additional items in Premier’s product offerings for its members.
