Fillauer Brand Guidelines: A Chattanooga Pharmacy of 1914 That Became a Prosthetics Maker

A pharmacy, an orthotics workshop and a family trade.

Fillauer dates its story to 1914, when, the company says, George Fillauer Sr., a German immigrant, opened the Red Cross Pharmacy in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The pharmacy, later renamed Red Star Pharmacy, widened its services by hiring a German “orthomeister,” Lawrence Porten, to make orthotic and prosthetic devices for veterans returning from the First World War, according to the company’s own timeline.

The business stayed in the family. Of George Sr.’s two sons, the company says, George Jr. became a pharmacist and Carlton trained as an orthotist and prosthetist, beginning an apprenticeship under his father in 1935 and qualifying as a certified prosthetist and orthotist in 1949. Fillauer describes Carlton as one of the first practitioners certified by the American Board for Certification in Orthotics and Prosthetics, a charter member of the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists, president of the certification board in 1957–58 and president of the American Orthotic & Prosthetic Association in 1962–63. George Jr. became president of the company in 1955.

Those details come from Fillauer’s own history page, which is the fullest account of its early decades; they are given here as the company’s account. What can be checked independently is the later corporate path, which runs through a merger, a takeover of the merged group and a buyout of the limb and brace business by the family.

In 1972, the company says, Fillauer merged with the pharmaceutical and surgical supplier Durr Drug. The combined business, Durr-Fillauer Medical, was based in Alabama; the International Directory of Company Histories describes it as a national supplier of medical and surgical products to hospitals and clinics.

Hooks, hands, feet and the tools to fit them.

Fillauer today describes itself as a maker of orthotic and prosthetic components and of the equipment clinicians use to build devices, rather than a clinic operator. Its website groups the range into upper-limb prosthetics, both myoelectric and body-powered; lower-limb prosthetics such as feet, knees and suspension parts; orthoses for the arm, foot, ankle, knee, hip and spine; and workshop equipment, including Trautman carvers and fabrication ovens.

Much of that range came through acquisitions, which the company lists in its timeline. Between 1996 and 1999 it bought Hosmer, Motion Control and the Center for Orthotic Design, which it says brought an upper-limb line, both body-powered and myoelectric, and the resources to develop a new version of the reciprocating gait orthosis. In 2002 it bought the Swedish company Centri AB, now Fillauer Europe, adding gloves, liners and protective leg coverings. In 2005 it added the Trautman equipment line and started a joint venture called Emotis, now Fillauer Composites, to make prosthetic feet from composite materials. In 2009 it bought OTS Corp., which made orthotic parts including the StepLock knee joint and PDQ ovens, and in 2019 it bought TRS Inc., which makes activity-specific devices for people missing one or both hands.

It also distributes other makers’ products. Fillauer says it agreed in 2017 to distribute the TASKA multi-articulating hand in the United States, with distribution rights extended to Canada two years later.

Its newest named line is Traverse, a family of hydraulic prosthetic feet announced on 29 September 2026. The release names three models — Traverse K2, Traverse SLX, previously sold as the Motion Foot SLX, and Traverse AV — and says the hydraulic function works without batteries or charging. The website also lists AllPro feet among its lower-limb products.

According to the Hanger announcement of January 2024, Fillauer has manufacturing and research sites in Tennessee, Utah, Colorado and Sweden, with its headquarters in Chattanooga.

How the category presents itself.

Prosthetics and orthotics companies sell to two audiences at once. Their customers are mostly clinicians, the prosthetists and orthotists who measure, cast and fit, and the clinics and health systems that pay; the people who wear the limbs and braces are the ones the pictures are built around. Blatchford’s website, for one, splits into sections for healthcare professionals, with technical documentation, training and clinical papers, and for patients and caregivers.

The imagery follows from that. Product shots often show carbon-fibre feet, knee joints and silicone liners isolated on white, like engineering components, which in part they are. Next to them come people in everyday settings: walking a dog, climbing stairs, at work or at home. Clinic photographs show a clinician kneeling beside a patient to check the alignment of a socket. The language around the pictures is about mobility and independence, often in a short slogan that the company uses as a statement of purpose.

Sport supplies the most dramatic images. Running blades made from carbon fibre have become a visual shorthand for the whole field, and makers put para-athletes in front of the camera; Össur, for one, sponsors a group of them as Team Össur, English Wikipedia says, naming Markus Rehm and Jody Cundy among them. Those pictures sit beside the quieter work of everyday limbs, which make up most of what the trade fits.

The industry also has its own meeting places. OTWorld in Leipzig, a world congress and trade fair held every two years, brought prosthetists, orthotists, manufacturers and researchers together in May 2026 and has announced its next edition for May 2028, with a para-sport activity area among its features. For a designer, the category is a study in balance: precision engineering, clinical trust and personal stories, held together, in several cases, by a founder’s own name.

From a family business to part of Hanger.

The merged medical-supply group did not stay independent. Fillauer’s timeline says that in 1993, when Durr-Fillauer was sold, Karl Fillauer and a group of investors bought its orthotics and prosthetics divisions to form Fillauer, Inc. The timeline names Cardinal Health as the buyer of Durr-Fillauer. The International Directory of Company Histories tells it differently: its Cardinal Health entry, published in 2003, says Cardinal tried to buy Durr-Fillauer Medical but lost a bidding contest to Bergen Brunswig, and its Bergen Brunswig entry, published in 1996, records that Bergen acquired Durr-Fillauer Medical, dating the deal to 1992. Either way, the limb and brace business left the medical-supply group and passed to the group led by Karl Fillauer.

Hanger still described it as family-owned three decades later. On 17 January 2024 Hanger, Inc., the Austin-based operator of Hanger Clinic, announced an agreement to buy Fillauer, describing it as a family-owned company with more than 100 years of history; on 22 February 2024 Hanger said the purchase was complete. Fillauer became part of Hanger’s Products & Services segment and, Hanger said, would keep its brand, leadership and team under Michael Fillauer, whom the company describes as a fourth-generation family member. He is now vice president and general manager of Fillauer Companies, a Hanger subsidiary.

That ownership puts a parts maker and a clinic chain under one roof, and it may soon be part of a larger group: in September 2026 Hanger announced a planned combination with the mobility-equipment provider Numotion, expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. Fillauer’s own website now carries a “Second Century of Innovation” heading and a © Fillauer LLC notice.

For a design guide, Fillauer shows how a company built on clinical workshop knowledge can keep its family name through a merger, a buyout and a sale. Compare Hanger, its owner since 2024, and Ohio Willow Wood, another long-running American limb maker. For this guide we use navy, plaster white and copper with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Fillauer’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.