Unless I’m missing something here, according to the MiniSim, the AquaWhoa coating IS from another supplier: HyrdoSurf from Conmodic, AquaWhoa from AND. I agree here with the point made that much of the purpose of getting another supplier is to allow for redundancy in case of some incident, and that getting a secondary supply from the same company kind of defeats the purpose. Having a secondary supplier can also be done to alleviate fluctaions in demand by companies to suppliers (a products takes off and all of a sudden a supplier needs to supply 1000000 pieces of a component). That being said, having a redundant supply can actually hurt rather than help if not implemented properly. In a project that I am on, we are evaluating our products with regards to new requirements from the FDA about biocompatibility. One product in particular has a component that is sourced from two different places. This has lead to headaches as one of the suppliers creates and maintains the supplied component at a somewhat, biocompatible process/level, while the other one does not at all, which causes the whole product to be out of compliance. It would be much easier to work with one supplier to bring the product into spec, but having two creates even more work to be done.