Merson's Suture Laboratories

Good day class. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin.

In 1915 a Scottish pharmacist named George Merson first began the commercial manufacture of surgical sutures in Edinburgh. The business prospered and by the end of WWII it had built a factory on the outskirts of Edinburgh in Sighthill. The success of the company was not overlooked, and in 1947 it became part of the Johnson and Johnson empire. Merson's company became known as ETHICON limited.

By the 1990s, this factory was now employing over 800 staff manufacturing over 1000 different medical products mainly concerned with wound closure and keyhole surgery.

In 2003, ETHICON announced the closure of the factory with the transfer of the work to Puerto Rico.

In 2009, I blipped the remaining vestige of ETHICON'S presence in Sighthill.