An Essex Street company that designs medical devices and creates the software to run them is reviving the slogan, "Making it in Massachusetts."
Morgan Scientific, an international leader in equipment that tests lung function, is negotiating with a Massachusetts company to manufacture its the updated version of its newest testing devices, which is currently manufactured under license in Belgium, said company president Patrick Morgan.
Morgan Scientific and its roughly two dozen employees occupy the eighth floor at 51 Essex St., where engineers and designers carry on a family tradition that dates to World War II when Morgan's father helped the British Navy develop devices to measure lung function as part of its submarine program.
The younger Morgan moved to the U.S. 30 years ago to develop the software arm of the company and better serve the American market. He moved the company from Andover to Haverhill about 12 years ago.
Today, Morgan Scientific sells pulmonary function testing machines to hospitals around the nation and the world. The Haverhill company has a longstanding partnership with Massachusetts General Hospital, which allows the company access to records of testing and the knowledge of the doctors who use the equipment to continually improve its products.
Its newest device, called a Body Box, allows testing of a number of breathing functions, said product specialist Ralph Browning, including:
spirometry, or how much air is moved in and out of the lungs,
diffusion, or how efficient the lungs are at using the oxygen taken in, and
plesmography, or the residual volume of oxygen in the lungs after the breath is exhaled.
More than a year ago, Morgan decided that he wanted to protect his company's intellectual property by having a newly retooled Body Box manufactured in Massachusetts.
Unfortunately, the decision coincided with the banking crisis, making it difficult for him to get the financing he needed when he needed it.
A local bank with which he had done business for years "didn't turn me down," Morgan said, but made it clear that it would not make the loan at that time.
Morgan was able to access a $400,000 loan and $100,000 line of credit from the Massachusetts Community Development Finance Corp. to develop the next generation of the Body Box and move the manufacturing back to the U.S.
Growing up in England, Morgan said he waited to have enough money to buy an American-made guitar because everyone there knew that American manufactured goods were the best.
"I am committed to American manufacture and local employment," he said. Currently, there is not a Haverhill manufacturing facility that can meet requirements set by the Federal Drug Administration for medical equipment, Morgan said. But he is convinced that moving manufacture back to Massachusetts improves the chances that a local company will develop the ability.
Haverhill state Rep. Brian Dempsey praised Morgan for his decision to return the manufacture of the device from Europe to Massachusetts.
"I am thrilled and I value the fact that you are a Haverhill business. The fact that we have cutting edge companies like Morgan Scientific right here in Haverhill speaks well for our economic future," said Dempsey, chairman of the Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies.
Morgan said he expects to have a contract by mid-2010, by the time the retooling process on the next Body Box is complete.
