PolyOne Continues to Build Healthcare Portfolio with New BASF Agreement

ANAHEIM, Calif., Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- PolyOne Corporation (NYSE: POL) and BASF Engineering Plastics announced today at the world's largest medical design and manufacturing trade show (MD&M West) that PolyOne Distribution will add to its portfolio BASF's advanced polymers for healthcare.

"As we continue to expand our healthcare portfolio, BASF's performance healthcare products are an excellent complement to our existing healthcare solutions that create value for our customers by helping them win in the marketplace," said Michael L. Rademacher, PolyOne senior vice president, president of PolyOne Distribution.

"Expanding our distribution channel to include PolyOne Distribution is consistent with the overall BASF distributor strategy of adding product lines to key distributors so that we can expand the product portfolio offerings," said Michael Britt, group vice president, Engineering Plastics for BASF in North America.

Today's announcement means PolyOne will now distribute BASF's high-performance Ultrason® product line. These high-temperature polymers can be used in equipment requiring optimum strength, chemical resistance and repeated exposure to certain sterilization processes. Examples of solutions using Ultrason include respiratory therapy devices, and food containers in compliance with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Union regulations.

In recent months, PolyOne has announced several significant developments to expand its specialized solutions for the healthcare industry from suppliers such as DuPont, as well as the recent acquisition of specialty healthcare compounder NEU Specialty Engineered Materials, LLC.  

About PolyOne

PolyOne Corporation, with 2009 annual revenues of $2.1 billion, is a premier provider of specialized polymer materials, services and solutions. Headquartered outside of Cleveland, Ohio USA, PolyOne has operations around the world. For additional information on PolyOne, visit our Web site at www.polyone.com.

About BASF

BASF Corporation, headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey, is the North American affiliate of BASF SE, Ludwigshafen, Germany. BASF has more than 15,000 employees in North America, and had sales of approximately $17.5 billion in 2008. For more information about BASF's North American operations, or to sign up to receive news releases by e-mail, visit www.basf.com/usa.

To access PolyOne's news library online, please go to www.polyone.com/news.

SOURCE PolyOne Corporation