Animal Replacement’s body parts are interchangeable. Damage a vein and it can be replaced—and nobody dies. They’re made like jigsaw puzzles. There are also no biohazards. And because it’s a reproducible model, companies can use it not only to test their device but they can test a competitor’s device and generate data that shows one device is better than another. “That’s impossible to do without our technology,” he says.

The crazy thing about Sakezles’ creations is that they seem so obvious you’re left wondering why no one thought of it sooner.

“The kernel of this idea developed in 2004 in Princeton, N.J.,” he recalls. “I had started my own consulting practice, Princeton Product Innovation, which is a consulting company that provides contract engineering services to individual inventors and small medical device manufacturers. At PPI we basically helped our clients develop catheters and other disposable medical devices. I was pitching these medical devices to small to medium-size companies. What made it unique was this modeling technology I designed that involves the mimicry of specific body parts. We conceptually break down body parts into individual tissue components (intima, media, tendon, fascia, etc.), develop physical synthetic tissues to mimic each one of these tissues, and then build an artificial body part out of the individual synthetic tissues. The resulting body part may be used for testing medical devices or teaching medical procedures. I started using the technology as a hook to land consulting work.”

But it rapidly became apparent that the best product Sakezles had was not his consulting skill but the ability to make one particular product—incredibly lifelike human body parts—and sell it over and over again.

“When I started out I was making everything myself in my lab, all the materials, all the formulation,” he says. “I started on a table in my home office in Princeton, then I relocated to St. Petersburg and moved the business to my garage.”

That first year, 2005, Sakezles did nothing but file patents and work for one client, Ethicon, a division of Johnson & Johnson. “That whole first year, everything was done under complete secrecy,” he says. “We didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag.”

His first patent was filed in January 2005 but not issued until February 2007. During that time, Animal Replacement Technologies moved three times, from Princeton to St. Petersburg and, in early 2006, to a 2,000-square-foot space in south Manatee County’s Parkland Corporate Center. This is home for Sakezles, who was born in Tampa and earned his undergraduate degree from the University of South Florida and his masters and Ph.D. in polymer science from the University of Florida in 1998.

Curiously, Sakezles knew nothing about anatomy upon graduating.

“Nothing,” he says. “The anatomy side of things I learned on my own. There isn’t any place in the country that trains medical device engineers. You go into the industry and learn on the run.”

So what brought him and his company here?

“Sarasota is trying to develop a simulation center of excellence,” he says. “The idea was that, potentially, there might be monetary support if the company was located here. So far that has not been the case. People here tend to invest in real estate. There is an effort to bring companies like this to the area, but the powers that be want companies that already have 100 employees; they’re not interested in grass roots growth. From a tax base standpoint, we’re nothing.”

In the past year, new buyers for the company’s unique products included St. Jude Medical, Fox Hollow Technologies and Tyco Healthcare.

“We didn’t go to our first trade show or start publicizing until February 2006,” Sakezles says. “We finally went to a trade show in Anaheim; by then we had filed 10 patents and were pretty well-protected.”

And what was the reaction from unsuspecting trade show attendees upon being exposed to Sakezles’ brainchild for the first time?

“Pandemonium,” he says. “It was insane. We didn’t advertise that we would be there but there was constantly a crowd at our booth. There were reps from Chinese and Japanese companies wanting to distribute. Hollywood companies were interested; surgeons, too. This technology cuts across a lot of different industries.”

What’s the big deal? We’re not just talking about an uncanny level of realism here. These products, made of 16 ingredients, but primarily water, fibers and salt, have physical properties that don’t just look and feel right, but are physically similar to human tissue.

When Animal Replacement Technologies ramps up production, Sakezles believes he will revolutionize medical device testing—among many, many other industries.