Mr. Hudson is founder, president, and chief executive officer of Research Genetics, Inc. He is also the founder of the Hudson-Alpha Institute.
Mr. Hudson grew up in Huntsville and graduated from Huntsville High in 1960. Prior to beginning his professional career, Hudson served as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1967 to 1970. During his tour of duty in Vietnam, Hudson flew many missions over North Vietnam. Hudson’s actions during one of these missions resulted in him being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the highest honor awarded to a military aviator.
He received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from The University of Alabama as well as a master’s degree in biology from UAH.
Mr. Hudson’s business acumen was nurtured by his father. The senior Hudson, together with sons, Jim and Gary, operated Hudson Metals which was an aluminum and gray iron foundry in Huntsville. Jim helped elevated Hudson Metals to the most productive small foundry in the Southeast before it was sold in 1982.
Having sold Hudson Metal in 1987 and, while earning a master’s degree in biology at UAH, Mr. Hudson founded Research Genetics with an initial investment of $25,000. While conducting research that required a piece of synthetic DNA, Hudson was appalled when he learned it would take up to four weeks to receive his order. It took only four hours to produce DNA but his order was in line behind many others that were to be produced by a single machine. “In that instant, I knew exactly what my business model would be. I was going to have enough machines that I was going to ship tomorrow everything ordered today.”
Launching from that initial business model, Research Genetics became a biotech business icon. Through thoughtful balance and key relationships with leading academic researchers, Hudson grew the world’s leader in genetic linkage products. Research Genetics was a chief partner in the Human Genome Project, the international effort coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health, to identify the sequence of the DNA found inside human cells.
Mr. Hudson served as chief executive of Research Genetics until 2000 when he sold the company to Invitrogen in a deal valued at more than $130 million.
“Having the capital (from Research Genetics) opened a lot of doors to help biotech gain a foothold in Huntsville,” he noted. Mr. Hudson has advised and incubated six successful biotech companies. He is co-founder and served as the first president of the Biotechnology Association of Alabama.
In addition to his business career, Mr. Hudson has initiated a number of projects to revitalize Huntsville’s downtown area and make it enticing to young professionals. His vision and passion toward ensuring its vibrancy have resulted in new arts venues, restaurants, and a greatly enhanced after-hours scene.
Today, Mr. Hudson is the founder and president of the Hudson-Alpha Institute for Biotechnology, a non-profit research institute that emphasizes high-throughput research tools and thrives on collaboration and cooperation of researchers in academia, industry, and government. This not-for-profit institute uses biotechnology to improve human health, stimulate economic development, and inspire the next generation of scientists. In a very real sense, the institute continues the work Mr. Hudson started at Research Genetics. The mission at Research Genetics was to find the latest cutting-edge tools that would accelerate research and make the findings of that research available to the rest of the world in an expedient and cost-effective manner.
With a $50 million commitment from the state, Mr. Hudson spear-headed a campaign to raise $80 million in private donations that together will create 900 direct new jobs. Mr. Hudson’s initiative is positioning Alabama to become a worldwide leader in biotech research and one of the premier places in the nation for these high-paying jobs that can’t be exported overseas. Governor Bob Riley has predicted that within ten years employment at the Cummings Research Park Biotech Campus (of which Hudson-Alpha Institute is the cornerstone) at close to 1,600 with a combined annual payroll of more than $83 million.
The Hudson-Alpha Institute’s new four-story, 270,000 square-foot facility, which opened in November of 2007, will initially provide accommodation for nine for-profit biotech companies, as well as institute researchers and administration. The facility contains state-of-the-art laboratories for biotechnology research and development in the areas of genetics and personalized medicine.
Governor Bob Riley described Jim Hudson best at the announcement ceremony for the Hudson-Alpha Institute, when he said, “There’s always a driving force, one person….who has the perseverance to take a vision and turn it into a reality. You’re blessed, ladies and gentlemen, to have a person like that in your midst today. I want to thank Jim Hudson for never backing down.”
