The materials themselves: DFT wire, strands, cables — components inside devices worldwide

1970 — today

Two metals in one wire: The company's signature technology after the strand is DFT® wire — drawn filled tubing, a composite that joins dissimilar metals in a single wire system, so that one wire can carry the properties of two: a radiopaque core, for instance, inside a superelastic sheath, letting a guidewire be both flexible and visible under X-ray. Around it the Fort Wayne product line runs to strands and cables (orthopedic cables among them), stylets, snares, strip, bar, shaped wire and shape-set assemblies, drawn in nitinol, titanium, L-605 cobalt alloy, and the implant-grade stainless steels 304V and 316LVM. The applications the company and the trade record name are the device era's working parts: guidewires and catheter components, pacing and defibrillator leads, stents and heart valve frames, retrieval baskets, orthodontic files and archwires, orthopedic cables and components. The scale is documented in the company's own technical literature: more than 20,000 pounds of nitinol strands and cable assemblies delivered in 2024 alone, and more than 650,000 pounds of its own melted nitinol sold into the medical device market since 2012. The trade press describes the company — in its own long-standing characterization, carried here as such — as the largest independent producer of nitinol products in the medical device industry. ASM International's account of its 2025 honors puts the present size plainly: more than 2,000 people across the Fort Wayne headquarters and the facilities in Columbia City, Indiana, and Ireland — the Irish plant opened at Castlebar in 2002, in the company's timeline. Fort Wayne designs and draws the material; the devices that carry it into bodies are designed and sold by its customers, which is the distinction the next entry states outright.

Sources:

1. Fort Wayne Metals, technical article "Advancing Nitinol from Melt to Medical Device" (COMPAMED 2026, rev. 04/2026) — the product portfolio (DFT® wire, strands and cables, strip, bar, shape-set assemblies, actuator wire); more than 20,000 pounds of nitinol strands and cable assemblies delivered in 2024.
2. Thomasnet supplier record, Fort Wayne Metals — custom strand and cable wire in 6AL-4V and CP titanium, L-605, 304V and 316LVM stainless and nitinol, for orthopedic cables, guidewires, bioconductors, stylets and snare products.
3. CIO Bulletin (30 December 2024) and Medical Buyer (21 December 2024), trade accounts of the company's nitinol program — the "largest independent producer of nitinol products in the medical device industry" characterization, carried as the trade press's; more than 650,000 pounds of melted nitinol sold since 2012; wire drawn as fine as 0.0127 mm.
4. ASM International, Equipment Archives (2025) — more than 2,000 employees across the Fort Wayne headquarters and facilities in Columbia City and Ireland; the company timeline's Castlebar, Ireland opening of 2002 carried alongside.