Croom Medical has been named the winner of the Innovation in Engineering Award at the 2025 Irish Engineering Excellence Awards. The recognition celebrates TALOS™, Croom Medical’s world-first platform for 3D-printing fully dense and porous tantalum components for orthopedic and industrial applications.
Developed through a multi-year research collaboration with Global Advanced Metals, TALOS™ overcomes long-standing challenges in processing tantalum, a metal recognised for its superior biocompatibility and mechanical performance but historically limited by manufacturing constraints. Using Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF), the platform enables the scalable, repeatable production of complex tantalum structures with exceptional density and precision.
The success of TALOS™ follows Croom Medical’s track record in transferring advanced metal additive manufacturing from R&D to industry, including its work with First Light Fusion on the development and production of components for advanced fusion energy systems. Together, these programmes demonstrate Croom Medical’s capability to industrialise cutting-edge technologies, from medical implants to extreme engineering applications.
Through TALOS™, Croom Medical is producing orthopedic implants that mimic natural bone architecture, with the potential for supporting faster bone ingrowth and long-term fixation. The platform also enables the direct printing of tantalum-on-titanium hybrid implants, combining titanium’s strength with tantalum’s superior osseointegration properties.
TALOS™ operates through a closed-loop powder recycling process, in which more than 95% of unused tantalum powder is recovered and reused, setting a new benchmark for sustainable advanced manufacturing.
The platform has already entered prototype production with several global orthopedic OEMs, reflecting strong market validation. Croom Medical formally launched TALOS™ as a commercial platform in April 2025 and is now expanding its use across orthopedic and industrial applications.
