Stratos Product Development of Seattle has abruptly shut down. The design firm had worked with some of the biggest names in tech and healthcare, and its closing leaves other design firms and medtech industry watchers in shock.
E-mailed inquiries to the company returned with this message: “This response serves to notify you of the closing of our business as of April 28, 2017. Thank you for your patronage and support over the past years of operation. Stratos Product Development wishes to apologize for any inconvenience caused by this closing notification.”
(Update: MDO has insights from a former employee and local competitor.)
Stratos Product Development is under the larger Stratos Group umbrella, which also includes biotech company Stratos Genomics and medical company Carewave. Geekwire, the only other outlet to report on the news, stated that Stratos Genomics CEO Mark Kokoris said in an email that his company is completely separate from Stratos Product Development and is not affected by the closure.
Stratos Product Development’s website is still active, although no new material has been posted. The company lists 64 employees on LinkedIn.
The company was founded in 1987. Microsoft, Apple and Nike can all be counted among its clients. In medtech, the company gained headlines for the work it did to help develop the rProteus Digital Health device.
The company also chose to work to develop medical products for underserved and low-resource regions. It worked with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a diagnostics device and helped Intellectual Ventures build a device that stores vaccines without requiring power.
The company had a strong reputation as a great place to work and an innovative partner for OEMs. On a personal note, I wrote for the company’s blog for over a year and knew several of the people that worked there. I’m wishing this group of talented and passionate employees the best for the future.
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PLEASE DELETE MY PREVIOUS COMMENT that I mistakenly attributed to Dr. Rustem Ismaligov.
It was sent in error.
You can add my name and email instead, if you cannot. Thank you.
Amer El-Hage
Will do. I’ll delete all of these, Amer. It was a good comment, though. If you could post under your own Gmail, that would be great. Best, Chris