MEDICAL

Cimco Inc., a Costa Mesa manufacturer of disposable medical products, has decided to pin its fortunes on a more modern thermometer.

Russell T. Gilbert, Cimco’s president and chief executive officer, said that the disposable covers it produces were designed to fit thermometers that were state of the art 15 years ago. But over the years, they became outmoded and lost their market share.

So about four months ago, Gilbert said, Cimco and IVAC, a San Diego digital-thermometer subsidiary of Eli Lilly, mutually agreed to cancel a contract for Cimco to produce $350,000 worth of covers a year.

In place of the canceled contract, Gilbert added, Cimco has signed a three-year agreement to produce covers for a miniaturized digital thermometer developed by Terumo, a Japanese-owned firm in Maryland. He estimates that the contract will be worth at least $1 million.

Under the contract, Cimco’s medical-molding subsidiary will design, tool and manufacture disposable covers that allow the thermometers to be reused without cross-contamination of patients. To permit accurate temperature readings, Gilbert said, the plastic covers must be as thin as 6/100 of an inch, or about the width of two human hairs.