Where PEEK Is Used in North American Manufacturing

Thermoplastic composite ducts and clips are the most credible out-of-autoclave story in the industry: no autoclave, no freezer life, weldable joints, and a scrap stream that can be reprocessed

PEEK handles, shafts, and insulating collars go where the instrument is genuinely reusable and sees hundreds of 134 C cycles, or where the part must be electrically insulating next to an electrosurgical element. It is priced like a metal and used like one

PEEK is why PEEK has a medical business at all. An interbody cage has to be radiolucent so the surgeon can see fusion progress on a plain film, and it has to have a modulus near cortical bone so it does not stress-shield the graft. Titanium fails the first test and metal artifact wrecks CT and MRI. Implantable PEEK comes from a very short supplier list with full traceability and a master file, and the resin cost per cage is trivial next to the regulatory cost of changing it

PEEK anchors took the rotator cuff and labral repair business from metal because they do not create MRI artifact, they do not complicate revision surgery, and they machine or mold into fine threads that hold in cancellous bone. The same implantable grade and the same master file as the spinal cage business

Carbon-fiber-reinforced PEEK bearing surfaces have been investigated for two decades as a way to get a lower-modulus, imaging-friendly articulation. They remain investigational rather than standard of care in hip and knee, which is a useful calibration of how slowly this family moves