Our story
By Damon D’Amico, Founder & CEO, Alden Medical
Alden’s story begins long before Alden Medical existed. In 1990, my father Al D’Amico, then a 57-year-old chemist, founded Alden Scientific. It was his third venture in medical manufacturing when he started it. Although the company footprint was small, only about two thousand square feet, it was built on determination and the belief that chemistry could make treatment safer for patients. In 1999, Alden Scientific was acquired by Sybron Dental Specialties and became part of Metrex Research Corp. Many of the people who worked with us through that transition are still with us today.
I grew up inside the manufacturing world long before Alden Scientific was formed. As a teenager in the early 1980s, I spent my summers working in my father’s earlier companies. Those shops were small and demanding, and they taught me how hard it is to build a successful business. I learned how much discipline it takes to keep a company moving forward and how important it is to choose the right partners.
Prior to Alden Scientific's eventual success, I made a decision that shaped the rest of my career. In 1991, I left my job in public accounting to join the company. My first role was as an administrative secretary and later as the controller. I also handled whatever else needed to be done, including IT, travel, administrative work, and even cleaning the office bathroom. One of my favorite photographs from those years shows me at twenty-seven setting up our trade show booth with my infant daughter in my arms. That picture captures exactly what Alden was: a family business built by people who showed up, worked hard, and cared about the products we made.
After serving as the general manager of Alden, a division of Metrex, for five years, in 2004 I reacquired the operation and formed Alden Medical. The timing was unforgiving. Dialysis clinics were shifting rapidly to single-use dialyzers, eliminating the market Alden Scientific once served. Reinvention was the only path forward.
I made the decision to go all in. We invested heavily in new chemistries, pursued FDA clearances, and moved into endoscope reprocessing and contract manufacturing. We expanded into product development, agricultural crop preservatives, and stability testing capabilities. For several years, Alden produced peracetic acid formulations used to combat citrus canker and potato blight. We exited that segment in 2014, but the work strengthened our technical foundation and broadened the company’s ability to solve complex problems for our partners. Peracetic acid remains a staple of our core chemistries for medical applications.
Alden Medical continued to grow through that reinvention, building robust quality systems to support private-label manufacturing as well as in-house R&D efforts. We developed the infrastructure and discipline required to support customers who depend on consistency, compliance, and technical excellence.
Just as I grew up in my father’s companies, my children grew up in mine. Each of them spent summers working in the plant and learned the business from the ground up. One of the most meaningful photos I have is from around 2009. My son, Damon Jr., eleven years old, is seated at the conveyor applying labels to boxes. Today he is a project manager at Alden Medical and part of the next generation carrying this company forward.
Alden Medical stands today on a foundation built by two generations and strengthened by people who have stayed with us through every transition. It is carried forward by a third generation that grew up in the aisles of our plant. We remain defined by a simple promise: we make products that matter, and we make them with integrity.
Damon D’AmicoFounder & CEO, Alden Medical