BANGOR, Maine — Puritan Medical Products has been awarded $11.6 million to expand its COVID-19 testing swab production, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins announced Monday. This award will help the medical supplies manufacturer based in Guilford to increase the production of swabs by 3 million per month.
In April, Sen. Collins worked to get Puritan a $75.5 million investment using Defense Production Act funds which increased its production of testing swabs and helped to build a modern manufacturing facility in Pittsfield. In August, Senator Collins announced a $51.2 million grant that allowed Puritan to retrofit an additional facility in Pittsfield. Together, these contracts brought Puritan’s total production of flock tip swabs and foam swabs to at least 90 million per month as well as hundreds of additional employees.
The new award will help modify the newest plant in Pittsfield to accommodate additional object flocking machines to make swabs for Cue Health. This funding will cover additional engineering work, changes in utilities, and overtime needed to keep the overall project on schedule.
The complete project timeline has not changed, and Puritan will have intermediate operational capacity as a result of this additional funding.
