The California, USA-headquartered medical company, Shockwave Medical, a firm focus on developing Intravascular Lithotripsy (IVL) to treat severely calcified cardiovascular disease, has announced the opening of its operations in Costa Rica. 

“Costa Rica has emerged as an ideal location for the medical device manufacturing industry due to its world-class manufacturing solutions in a very cost-competitive environment complemented by a solid, highly trained talent pool and a business-friendly environment,” said Michael Maszy, Vice President of Operations at Shockwave Medical. 

According to the firm, they will make a significant investment to build a world-class greenfield manufacturing facility in Coyol Free Zone in Alajuela.

This operation in Costa Rica will allow Shockwave to expand its current manufacturing capacity. This will be in addition to the company’s current production facility in Santa Clara, California. 

The company is driven by innovation to improve clinical outcomes for patients all over the world via its transformative IVL technology for the treatment of cardiovascular disease.

The new manufacturing facility of a 3,500m2 building will support Shockwave’s growing product portfolio with additional capacity, manufacturing redundancy and additional supply chain risk mitigation. 

Shockwave is looking to hire technically inclined and engineering-centric individuals with a passion to create medical devices in the areas of process engineering, quality assurance and operations. People interested to apply for a job vacancy should send their resume to careers@shockwavemedical.com or visit the firm's Careers site.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Trade, exports of medical devices from Costa Rica reached $5 billion in 2021, and are expected to grow to $6 billion by the end of this year.

Shockwave is one of many U.S. companies investing in Costa Rica. This week, the Minnesota-based Medtronic, a MedTech industry firm, opened its third manufacturing module close to 5,000m2 in Alajuela Province. According to the firm, this expansion is an estimated investment of $65 million which will continue until 2024. 

Even though new businesses are creating jobs in Costa Rica, the unemployment rate has increased to 12%, according to the National Employment Survey. The data recorded from July to September, show that there are more than 297,000 people without registered jobs. Of these, 165,000 are women, making up 55% of unemployed people in the country.

 

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