An Israeli startup hoping to disrupt the imaging industry has just reached a big milestone—inking a deal to distribute 3,000 futuristic, low-cost scanners across the U.S.
Nanox announced Thursday that it’s partnering with Florida-based, Siemens-backed teleradiology provider USARad. The two companies are collaborating to eventually begin using the Nanox.Arc—a new digital x-ray device that carries a much smaller footprint and cost when compared to CT, MRI and PET. It stores images in a cloud for easy access by hospitals and radiologists, and has been compared to medical beds in Star Trek.
“Current top-range medical imaging systems are extremely expensive and there are not enough scanners to provide proper accessibility for all communities to have early-detection healthcare,” Michael Yuz, MD, radiologist, founder and CEO of USARad, said in a statement. “We believe the Nanox.Arc is the game-changer we have all been waiting for to solve the availability issue in our field.”
USARad currently has access to some 300 board-certified radiologists in 15 countries and all 50 states, and it’s planning to recruit more. Under the deal, the teleradiology company’s clinicians utilize Nanox’s x-ray systems through “medical-screening-as-a-service” model, paying on a per-scan basis. The system is built to handle all aspects of the imaging transaction, including billing, reporting and an artificial intelligence component.
Nanox also announced in January that it had ballooned its fundraising total to $55 million, thanks to investors such as Fujifilm and Foxconn. The partners said Thursday that they hope to eventually reach 6,000 freestanding imaging centers, 7,600 urgent care clinics and thousands more doc practices across the U.S. Deployment of the machine, however, is still dependent on regulatory approval, they added.
"This is a strategic agreement for Nanox,” Ran Poliakine, founder and CEO of the Neve Ilan, Israel company, said in a statement. “USARad brings a wealth of professional radiology and market proficiency in the American healthcare arena, as well as acts as a pivotal partner to support our business model and social agenda in the U.S.”
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.