Premier's managing director, Stuart Grant, explains: "From knees and hips to dental structures, the size of the market for implants is increasing worldwide. The challenges faced by our medical customers, in terms of material, surface finish and geometric tolerance, are not too far removed from the other advanced industry sectors we support, such as aerospace, motorsport and oil and gas."

Medical device and drug delivery components produced by Premier include detector pressure tubes and filtration tubes. Machined core tubes for the filtration and the reverse osmosis (RO) industries are designed by customers for use in a variety of applications. Working with the customer from inception, Premier continues to provide engineering expertise as well as components machined to the customer's specifications.

The tubes are machined at both ends and features can be generated, including turned and/or bored diameters, chamfers, grooves, multiple rows of drilled cross-holes, abraded surfaces, slots, and specific overall lengths. Outside diameters range from 25 to 100 mm. Overall lengths are typically held to +/- 0.5 mm but can be held tighter if the application requires it. Size, location, and geometry of other machined features are held to CNC controlled tolerances. Typical filtration core tube materials include ABS, Polysulfone, Noryl, PVC, CPVC, and stainless steel.

Hip replacement has become increasingly commonplace as the medical technology has improved, as life spans increase, and the population ages. It is most commonly performed to reduce the pain and hip replacement surgery is performed most often to relieve the pain and immobility resulting from arthritis.

As well as the component parts for replacement hip joints medical tools, such as rasp handles, are also produced by Premier. Rasps are used to prepare bones for joint replacement implants, they can open up the socket joint in the pelvis to accept a machined insert and also shape the femoral neck to accommodate the stem of the precision machined ball joint.

Used to secure long bones that have been fractured, bone nails are also machined by the company. Sometimes called a rod, the bone nail is a long, thick metal pin with holes in it may be driven down the shaft of the bone from one end. Screws are then passed through the bone and through a hole in the pin.

"We have experience of machining bio compatible materials to very tight tolerances for a number of customers and are always keen to discuss new projects with medical suppliers," concludes Stuart Grant.