The Consultancy was founded in 1994 by Catherine Side and was called the Virtual Consulting Group (VCG).
It was created to fill a market niche in the bioscience consulting sector. Companies, academia and government all needed an alternative to the city consultants with their large overheads and impersonal service, whilst solo consultants were often unable to give the breadth of expertise to cover larger assignments.
As an unincorporated body, VCG became recognised as a major contributor to the raising of standards in this consulting sector and the source of much excellent work in many fields.
Government agencies have particularly valued the independent viewpoint with some of the larger projects we have completed.
In this increasingly complex business world, we perceived a need to formalise our structure to offer a fuller range of services with the weight of a limited company, but without some of the restrictions.
In 2006, the membership of VCG morphed into a Limited Liability Partnership: this company format was introduced just a few years ago and aimed at multinational accountancy and law firms, and we were the first to apply it to a consulting group.
In essence it gave the members more security, a stronger market presence with more services being offered.
VCG LLP was relaunched as Acumentia Consulting Ltd in 2008.
For clients, we can now offer at least as good a service as the city consultants, with all experts as required, true independence, and none of the overheads of a big office. Services are offered across all the bioscience sectors, with the main umbrella areas being food and beverage and pharmaceuticals.