Sagentia is a company that thrives on complexity. Its business is built around helping both established and emerging technology companies avoid the uncertainties of innovation.
"We operate best where there is a complex scientific or technical problem that needs resolving as part of product development,” CEO Brent Hudson told MassDevice.
Hudson, who joined the research and development consulting firm in 2009, describes the services they offer as having a little ‘r’ and a big ‘D.’
About 20 percent of Sagentia’s revenue comes from market research and analysis of IP that might not have a clear path to commercialization. The remaining 80 percent comes from product development. The company, which has a staff that’s 25 percent PhD, offers industrial and systems design and expertise in laboratory and manufacturing operations.
“All of the things you would need to bring a complex medical device to market,” Hudson noted.
Sagentia wants to mitigate the risks associated with the development of technology that must be innovative in order to be successful.
“We believe that we offer excellent value for money and we are much lower-risk option for our customers than probably any other option they could look at. There is a risk-reduction premium involved in using a company like Sagentia,” Hudson explained.
The company has been in business for 25 years and has logged 15 in the medical device space. Its experience includes at least eight point-of-care diagnostics projects, for companies including T2 Biosystems Inc., a Cambridge, Mass.-based startup developing nano- and miniaturized magnetic resonance-based technology for use in a bench-top instrument for small molecule detection.
Sagentia is headquartered in Cambridge, England, and has offices in Hong Kong, but recently opened up in Cambridge, Mass., to take advantage of the city’s annual crop of bright science and engineering graduates and its proximity to a cluster of medical device firms. About 65 percent of the company’s revenues come from the U.S., but its recent move suggests that number could grow.
Click here to listen to MassDevice’s interview with Sagentia CEO Brent Hudson. You can also download an MP3 of the interview by right-clicking.