By Wendy Anders

Edwards Lifesciences Corporation (NYSE: EW), the Irvine, California-based world leader in heart valve technologies and hemodynamic monitoring, announced today they are expanding operations to set up a heart valve manufacturing plant in Cartago, Costa Rica.

Located in the La Lima Free Zone in Cartago, the company is currently looking to fill about 150 positions in production, engineering, and administration to begin operations in early 2017.

Cartago’s Universidad Americana (UAM) will host the company’s staff training slated to begin in September.

According to CINDE, the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency, Costa Rica is the second largest exporter of medical devices in Latin America, and saw their medical technologies exports increase by 25 percent from 2014-2015.

Edwards Lifesciences has a presence in over 100 countries. The components that will be produced in Cartago, Costa Rica will be sent to Edwards’ manufacturing plants in United States, Singapore, and Switzerland for final processing and assembly.

CINDE is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization responsible for attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) to Costa Rica.

“Edwards chose Costa Rica for an additional production plant for our life-saving heart valve technologies because the country has a qualified labor force and experience in the production of medical devices,” stated Josué Campos, general manager of Edwards Costa Rica.

The 79-hectare La Lima Free Zone in Cartago opened in 2014 with their first plant – the German Zollner Elektronik AG, a global electronic manufacturing and engineering services firm.