3M Co., the maker of 55,000 products from Post-It notes to electronic road signs, said it will invest $20 million to increase production of respiratory masks that protect against the swine-flu virus.
3M’s safety unit benefited from a “tremendous sequential surge” in demand for the masks last quarter because of the spread of the flu, also known as H1N1 influenza, chief financial officer Patrick Campbell said Thursday. The investment will boost mask capacity worldwide by 10 percent. Demand for the protection is “huge,” chief executive George Buckley said.
3M and Kimberly-Clark are among the few companies making respiratory masks that ward off swine flu. Only masks rated N95 or above, which can filter at least 95 percent of airborne particles, are effective at blocking the virus, according to federal health officials.
In a related development, the U.S. may have as many as 160 million doses of swine-flu vaccine available in October, even though global manufacturers are having serious trouble producing it, federal officials said Thursday.
The Food and Drug Administration may formally approve much of that vaccine before studies required to prove how well it works are completed. Bloomberg News Service
