MWE - Medical Wire

A history of service

For over half a century, Medical Wire has been helping microbiologists and other diagnostic professionals to obtain the high quality specimens essential for accurate investigations.

Initially, we provided the materials that enabled customers to produce their own collection devices, such as swabs, inoculating loops and dip slides. This gradually evolved into the supply of pre-packed, validated devices. Typical uses include nurses taking a specimen; quality managers sampling food contact surfaces in a meat processing plant; and police collecting forensic evidence at a crime scene.

In 1975, Medical Wire launched Transwab®. This was the first complete, ready-to-use transport swab kit, complete with swab and a tube of semi-solid transport medium, suitable for all micro-organisms. This was followed by Virocult®, with a medium dedicated to virus isolation.

Innovative solutions

We have now launched our new Sigma-Swab® (∑-Swab®) range of products. These use our extensive experience of media development, combined with a new kind of collection device. This incorporates advanced materials for optimum specimen collection, transport and processing - whether automated or conventional.

There have been many other innovations, such as our dedicated ranges for the food and pharmaceutical industries. These include:

• NRS™ Transwab® and the new NRS II™ rinse swabs
• Polywipe™ sponge swabs for the measurement of residual contamination on disinfected surfaces
• A range of Isolation Transwab® for the easy detection of common pathogens (such as listeria and coliforms) in food production environments.

 In the laboratory, our solutions include: 

• The Microloop® range of inoculating loops, which has served many generations of microbiologists.
• Our traditional long-life nichrome and platinum loops and, more recently, our disposable plastic Classic Microloop®.
• Our Rapid Test Strips™ and Microrings™, providing convenient tests for the identification of many important bacteria and fungi.
• Viabank™, our frozen bead storage system for the preservation of laboratory strains and valuable isolates.

All clinical Transwab® products comply with the CLSI standard M40-A (for the Quality Control of Microbiology Specimen Transport Devices).

Medical Wire's clinical products are CE-marked as medical devices (up to Class IIa) or in vitro medical devices, manufactured to ISO 13485:2003. Where appropriate, they are registered with the United States FDA. All of our clinical and non-clinical products are also manufactured to ISO 9001:2008.