[ In short ]
Lunarion Labs helps Boston organizations in biotech, healthcare, education, robotics and financial services rescue, secure and extend their software: research tools, patient and student platforms, SaaS products, mobile apps, AI assistants and automations. We work remotely on Eastern Time, the same working day as Boston. One senior lead owns each project from first call to launch, and every project starts with a fixed-price audit that ends with a written diagnosis and a detailed, prioritized quote.
01The Boston market
Boston's economy is built on knowledge. Harvard and MIT across the river in Cambridge, along with many other universities and colleges in the region, produce research, graduates and spin-off companies every year. Kendall Square has become one of the best-known biotech and life sciences clusters in the world, and the Longwood Medical Area concentrates major hospitals and research institutes in one part of the city.
Around that core sits a broad technology economy. Robotics companies grew out of university labs, edtech companies serve schools and universities, and the Route 128 corridor has a long history of software and hardware firms. Boston is also a center for asset management, insurance and financial services. The result is a city where software is often built by scientists, clinicians, researchers and analysts first, and professional engineers second.
That has clear consequences for software. Many Boston tools started as a lab script, a grant-funded prototype or a student project, and slowly became something a department or company cannot work without. They handle sensitive data such as patient records, research results, student information or financial positions, yet they were rarely designed with access control, audit trails or documentation in mind. Before adding features, these systems usually need to be understood, secured and written down.
Sectors we know well in Boston
- Biotech and life sciences
- Healthcare and hospitals
- Higher education and edtech
- Robotics
- Financial services
02Software challenges we see in Boston
The tool built by someone who left
A postdoc, a graduate student or a contractor built a data pipeline, a sample tracker or an analysis dashboard. It worked, the team adopted it, and then its author moved on. Now nobody knows how it is deployed, where the data lives or what breaks if a library is updated. The lab or company depends on software nobody can safely change.
Sensitive data, informal access
Health, research and student data deserve careful handling, but small teams often share admin accounts, keep credentials in documents and copy production data to laptops for convenience. Hospitals, universities, partners and investors increasingly ask for proof of access management and data handling, and informal habits become a blocker for partnerships and grants.
Research workflows held together by spreadsheets
Life sciences and research teams frequently move data between instruments, spreadsheets, shared drives and email. Each handoff is a chance for errors, lost versions and duplicated work. Scientists spend time on copying and reformatting rather than on research, and results become harder to trace back to their source when someone asks months later.
Edtech platforms that must not fail
Learning platforms see heavy, predictable peaks at the start of a semester, during exams and around deadlines. A platform that is slow or down at those moments damages trust with schools and students immediately. Many edtech products grew feature by feature without load testing, monitoring or a clear plan for upgrades, which makes each new term a risk.
03What we do for Boston companies
Software rescue
For a Boston lab or company that depends on an orphaned tool, rescue means recovering access, reading the code and the database, documenting how it works and moving every account into the organization's name. Then we rotate exposed secrets, add backups and monitoring, and fix what is fragile. The goal is software any qualified engineer can pick up, not a black box with a new owner.
SaaS & business software
We build business and research software for Boston teams: sample and experiment tracking, study participant portals, partner and sponsor dashboards, internal tools for clinical operations, and SaaS products for universities and hospitals. Each comes with roles and permissions, audit logs where needed, an admin panel and integrations with the systems your organization already runs.
Mobile apps
Health, wellness and education products in Boston often need a mobile app that patients, participants or students actually use. We build iOS and Android apps with secure sign-in, reminders and notifications, offline support where connectivity is unreliable and accessibility in mind. We handle store review and keep the developer accounts in your organization's name.
AI & agents
AI can save research and operations teams a great deal of reading and searching. We build assistants that answer questions over your own protocols, documentation and literature notes, with sources cited so answers can be checked, access limited to the right people and logs kept for review. We also help teams decide where AI should not be used with sensitive data.
Automation
We replace manual research and admin chains with reliable automations: instrument exports parsed and stored in one place, sample status updated without retyping, reports generated from the latest data, approvals routed to the right person. We use custom code where data handling must be tightly controlled, and tools like n8n, Make or Zapier where they are a good fit.
SEO & AI visibility
Biotech, health and edtech companies in Boston often have strong expertise and a weak website. We fix technical SEO, structure pages around the questions your buyers, partners and patients actually ask, and make your content clear enough for AI search engines and assistants to understand and cite accurately, which matters in fields where precise wording counts.
04Typical situations in Boston
- A Cambridge biotech team relies on a sample tracking tool written by a former contractor. Nobody knows how it is hosted, and the team wants it documented, secured and extended before the next study begins.
- A Boston edtech company sees its platform slow down every time a new semester starts. They want monitoring, performance fixes and an upgrade plan, without taking the platform offline during the school year.
- A health startup is preparing to pilot its product with a hospital system and has received a long security questionnaire. They need an honest review of access, data handling and logging, and a prioritized fix list.
- A university research group exchanges data between instruments, spreadsheets and email. They want one internal tool that collects results, tracks versions and produces the reports their sponsors ask for.
05How a project runs, step by step
- Fixed-price audit. We review the code, access, hosting and contracts, then deliver a written diagnosis with a prioritized, costed plan.
- Secure. Every account and the repository are moved into your company's name, backups are in place and exposed secrets are rotated.
- Fix and build. We stabilize what is fragile, refactor step by step and build what is missing, on a copy of your product.
- Launch and hand over. We publish only after checking, then hand over documentation any senior engineer can pick up.
06How we work with Boston teams
Boston is on Eastern Time, like our working day, so calls, reviews and releases fit naturally into your schedule. We work remotely, with one senior lead who owns the project from the first call to launch and is the person you actually talk to. Decisions, progress and open questions are recorded in the Lunarion client app, which helps when several stakeholders, such as a principal investigator, an operations lead and IT, need to stay informed.
We work on a copy or staging environment and only publish after checking, so researchers, clinicians or students keep using the system while it improves. We refactor step by step instead of attempting a big-bang rewrite. Code, domains, repositories, cloud, app store and payment accounts are moved into your organization's name and documented at handover. We can sign an NDA before seeing anything, and we work in English and French.
07What shapes the scope of a Boston project
We do not publish prices: every project is different, and the audit is what sets the quote. These are the factors that weigh most:
- The sensitivity of the data involved and the access controls and logging it requires
- How much of the existing system is undocumented or depends on one former author
- The number of instruments, databases and institutional systems to connect
- Expected usage peaks, such as semester starts or study enrollment periods
- How many stakeholders must review and approve changes inside your organization
08Frequently asked questions
Can you document and secure a tool built by someone who has left?
Yes. We start with an audit, recover and move every access into your organization's name, rotate exposed secrets and write documentation any engineer can pick up. Then we stabilize and improve the tool step by step while your team keeps using it.
Do you work with Boston organizations on Eastern Time?
Yes. Boston is on Eastern Time like us, so calls and releases happen within your working day. We work remotely, and the Lunarion client app keeps every stakeholder up to date between calls.
Can you help us prepare for a hospital or university security review?
Yes. We review access management, secrets, data flows, logging and hosting, then give you a written report and a prioritized plan. We fix the technical issues and help you describe the resulting setup accurately in your answers.
How does a project start?
Every project starts with a fixed-price audit of your code, access, hosting and contracts. It ends with a written diagnosis and a detailed, prioritized quote, so you know exactly what you are dealing with before committing to further work.
Who owns the code and the accounts?
Your organization does. Code, repositories, domains, cloud, app store and payment accounts are moved into your organization's name and documented at handover. Nothing stays tied to a personal account, ours or anyone else's.
Can you work on a system that holds sensitive research or health data?
Yes, with care. We can sign an NDA first, limit our access to what the work requires, use copies or anonymized data whenever possible and work on staging rather than production. Your data handling rules apply to us as well.
09Other cities we work with
[ Lunarion audit ]
Need an outside view?
The Lunarion audit takes stock of your project: a written diagnosis, priorities and costs.