| The Covid-19 pandemic brought the business opportunity of a lifetime to a family-owned company called Puritan Medical Products. Based in the tiny town of Guilford, Maine, Puritan is the sole Covid swab manufacturer in the U.S. Medical swabs are deceptively complex to make, demanding precise manufacturing in proprietary machines to meet hospitals' strict regulatory requirements. The only other company that makes the medical swabs needed for Covid tests, Copan Diagnostics, is based in Italy. When the White House realized swabs were the weak link in America's testing supply chain last March, officials called Puritan and asked it to ramp up production 10-fold. But there was a problem: The two cousins who own the company, Timothy Templet and John Cartwright, have long hated each other. Their rift had resulted in delayed investments to modernize manufacturing lines, stagnant wages for a dwindling workforce and an outdated back-office information technology system. Three weeks before that call, Templet had filed a lawsuit to dissolve the business, citing "major, long-standing and irreconcilable disagreements" with Cartwright.  Covid testing in South Carolina. Photographer: Micah Green/Bloomberg The situation was "close to a point where something is going to break," the lawsuit read. "Cartwright and Templet no longer speak, no longer make joint decisions, and are essentially unable even to be in the same room together." Admiral Brett Giroir, the former testing czar under President Trump, called Templet and Cartwright and asked them to set aside their animosities for the good of the country. "I remember telling them how critical they were," Giroir recalled. "I said they may not realize it now, but a lot of the pandemic response will depend on them." The cousins vowed to honor their patriotic duty. Invoking the Defense Production Act, the U.S. invested a quarter of a billion dollars in Puritan to boost its production capacity. The company now has two new facilities operating in Pittsfield, Maine, and plans for a third in Tennessee. It has doubled headcount, upgraded machines and is set to dominate a global medical swab industry that could be worth as much as $4 billion by 2027. None of that has quelled the cousins' feud, however. Their fight has continued in private courtroom sessions over the past year, according to previously sealed legal documents obtained by Bloomberg. And those close to the owners say the dispute is likely to become even more fraught, now that Puritan is worth so much more.—Olivia Carville | 
↠〖*HDvideo~〗 2020 Skyggen i mit øje PelÃcula Completa En LÃnea released 2020. story: Skyggen i mit øje PelÃcula Completa En LÃnea. ↞◬∺Skyg...
Post a Comment