Haydale Graphene Industries announces Taiwan operations

Located in Kaohsiung, the unit will act as a dedicated producer and sales outlet of graphene-based conductive inks and pastes.

The company's proprietary graphene-based pastes developed in the region are focused on the self-monitoring blood glucose (SMBG) device market and, in conjunction with several Taiwanese printing customers, have been incorporated in to test products for the US and EU markets, expecting sales of these tailored pastes to commence before the end of the year.

Haydale said it had targeted the SMBG sector based on findings by Dublin group, Research & Markets, that stated the device market was expected to grow to over $16bn by 2020 due to dramatically increased instances of diabetes.

Ray Gibbs, chief executive of Haydale, said "The development of our graphene-based inks has been focused on the screen printing market for over three years, which started with Haydale being awarded an Innovate UK grant for the production of ink for the self-monitoring blood glucose device market.

"Three years later we have expectations on securing sales this calendar year and the necessary FDA and regulatory approvals through dedicated printers such that we were confident to open an operation facility in Taiwan to service our collaboration partners' needs. The biomedical sensor market is massive and we consider that the Far East has a significant portion of this growing sector. I look forward to making more announcements on progress in ink sales over the coming months."

As of 1450 BST, shares had gained 2.61% to 177.00p.