Covid-19 Related Products

FDA / CE Approved KN95 Masks and Medical Face Masks - IN STOCK!

These KN95 masks are in stock for immediate shipment.  Zhishan Medical is an FDA/CDC certified manufacturer and the masks are CE certified.  They  were on the FDA and CDC approved list on the date of import. 

P/N MS101 - Medical Face Mask, PK of 50 - Contact us for a quote.

P/N MS101 - Medical Face Mask, CS of 1000 - Contact us for a quote.

P/N KN95 - KN95 Respirator Mask, EA - Contact us for a quote.

P/N KN95 - KN95 Respirator Mask, CS of 1000 - Contact us for a quote.

LPS Chemicals to fight Covid-19

Since the beginning of the pandemic, panic buying of many chemicals and solutions have emptied the shelves of much needed products to ensure a sanitary workplace: 

70% Isopropyl Alcohol - The CDC recommends the use of 70% Isopropyl alcohol for disinfecting surfaces.  Many people have previously bought wipes saturated with 70% IPA which have become extremely hard to get during the pandemic.  Many of our suppliers have long backorders on 70% IPA.  We located a source of this chemical and decided to purchase it in bulk to ensure a constant supply for our clients.

We have 70% IPA ready to ship in three sizes, ½ gallon, 1 gallon, and 5 gallon (20L).

CC-151009-64OZ - Contact us for a quote.

CC-151009-1GAL - Contact us for a quote.

CC-151009-20L - Contact us for a quote.

CC-151009-55GAL - Contact us for a quote. 

*IPA is considered hazardous by the D.O.T. and hazmat charges will apply.

We are often asked if 70% IPA is ACS grade?  As with all mixed solutions, there is no grade or impurity level involved.  If you were to purchase 99% IPA (we also have limited 1 gallon quantities of this in stock which are ACS grade) then it would be appropriate to ask about the impurities.

Sodium Hypochlorite 12.5% - (Bleach) - We have bleach available for immediate shipment in 55 gallon drum quantities

P/N C-NAOCL-55 - Contact us for a quote.

*We will soon have gallon sizes available.

Hand Sanitizer - Formulated to FDA specifications by Cornerstone Analytical Laboratories, this ethanol based sanitizer is available in 64oz bottles. 

P/N MS-HAND-64OZ - Contact us for a quote. 

*This product can be produced in any size up to 55 gallons.

Nitrile and Latex Gloves in the Pandemic

The worldwide availability of nitrile gloves has evaporated as players, big and small, have scrambled to ensure their own supplies.  Labs are just now realizing that what they took for granted as something anyone and everyone from Wal-Mart to Home Depot had on their shelves has vanished.

What caused the shortage?  There are several factors that lead to this shortage: 

Panic buying.  Just like toilet paper, people heard rumors of shortages and started hoarding.

The pandemic.  First responders and hospital workers all wear nitrile gloves.

Increased demand.  As businesses begin to re-open, many industries are now mandating that their employees wear hand protection.  This new demand has far exceeded the world capacity to produce gloves.

Cornering the market.  Big players have seen that there is a limited supply and a huge demand and have stepped in to take advantage of the situation by buying up the entire future production of the big Asian companies who manufacture gloves.  These big players aren’t the usual suspects - Fisher and VWR who are both scrambling to find suppliers.

The U.S. Government has driven up the price and decreased the supply.- In an effort to restock the strategic reserve, the U.S. government has made huge purchases of nitrile gloves in China.  Compared to the wholesale prices prior to the pandemic, the U.S. government paid 2.5 times that price to obtain the gloves.  Not only did they wipe out a huge amount of the available production, but they reset the asking price by wholesale producers for all other producers.

Lack of excess capacity - Producing gloves in massive quantities requires huge factories and lots and cannot be automated easily.   Unlike ramping the production of ventilators, glove manufacturing is a massive undertaking.  There are two videos worth watching.  The first is a video taken at a Chinese glove manufacturer.  The second goes into the process for how gloves are made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF0VUrgl6PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6x4zsD-9es

After watching the videos, it should come as no surprise that gloves are made primarily in Southeast Asia and China.  This was where rubber trees produce latex and where labor is the least expensive.  

Nitrile gloves begin their lifecycle as rubber from rubber trees. They are then transformed into latex rubber. After they are turned into latex rubber, they are again reprocessed until they turn into the nitrile compound material. The extra processing removes all latex proteins.  So you still need the rubber trees and they don’t grow in the USA but they grow very well in Southeast Asia. 

In order to build a glove producing plant in the U.S., you would need tens of thousands of ceramic hand molds.  ZIBO HAOXIANG CERAMICS TECHNOLOGY CO.,LTD in China would be your source and there’s the 25% tariff to import them. 

There are only so many rubber trees and glove producing plants.  When operating at capacity, plants can only produce a limited amount of gloves.  Then must be loaded onto container ships and sent to the rest of the world.

Can LPS help you source gloves?

Currently there are three ways to obtain gloves.  Work with suppliers who had contracts in place before the pandemic, buy from those people who cornered the market at their escalated prices or work directly with Chinese manufacturers who again are working at prices reset to 2.5X (or more) the pre-pandemic levels.

Get used to higher prices.  The days of $5.00 boxes of gloves are over.  You will need to reset your thinking about what a “good” price is on a box of nitrile gloves.  The wholesale price IN CHINA of gloves today is $12.50 per box of 100.

Anticipate extended back orders.  Sterile latex gloves, or any gloves used in a medical setting, are very difficult to get from any supplier.  There ARE gloves in the supply chain.  You WILL get your gloves at some point, but they may not be the brand you prefer or the mil thickness.  Be flexible.  The days of being able to choose between dozens of brands are over.

Supplies are limited.  One of our vendors, has a contract with Showa Best.  Each month a container ship arrives from their plant in Malaysia.  We will be getting an allocation of each of these shipments.  Putting in “big” orders won’t help.  You are competing against large companies that put up the funds in advance.

We are doing everything we can to find gloves for our clients.  If you are in dire need, gloves ARE available from certain sources but the price will be high.  Think $18 - $22 per pack of 100.  They may require a sizable minimum purchase.  But they are available.

If you can wait, the Showa Best gloves will be arriving and the price of these gloves will be far more reasonable for now.  But you can expect prices to go up in the future.

We are focusing on the new Showa Best 7500 biodegradable glove in cases of 2000 as this is what they are able to ship first:
The green, 4-mil version (Showa Best 6110PF) of this glove will be available in limited quantities in future shipments.

 Summary

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected all of our lives in so many ways that we often don’t think about its impact on the supply chains we have come to take for granted.  The pandemic has upset the lab supplies market on products we can easily understand - gloves, masks, sanitizing wipes, sanitizers, gowns, face shields - and on items that we would never have anticipated such as pipet tips.  Yes these is a shortage of pipet tips!