Photo above: Ran Poliakine, Founder and CEO of Nano-X Imaging

Nano-X Imaging from Neve-Ilan, near Jerusalem, has signed an agreement to provide approximately 1,000 digital X-ray CT systems for medical imaging services across Australia, New Zealand and Norway. The company announced an exclusive distribution deal with The Gateway Group. Subject to receiving local regulatory approvals, the parties will collaborate on the deployment and operation of the Nanox.ARC and the Nanox.CLOUD.

The agreement guarantee a minimum service fee of $58 million per year for three years to Nanox. “We want medical imaging to be available in rural areas as well as major cities alike, and we look forward to working with the team at Gateway to help us realize this social agenda,” said Nanox, founder and CEO Ran Poliakine. This follows an agreement from February 2020 with Siemens Healthineers-backed USARAD. The companies will collaborate on the deployment of 3,000 Systems in the U.S., under Nanox’s MSaaS (Medical Screening as a Service) pay-per-scan business model.

Nanox System is comprised of the Nanox.ARC, a medical imaging system incorporating a novel digital X-ray source, as well as the Nanox.CLOUD, a companion cloud-based software that will be designed to provide an end-to-end medical imaging service expected to include image repository, radiologist matching, online and offline diagnostics review and annotation, connectivity to diagnostic assistive artificial intelligence systems, billing and reporting.

Nanox has built a novel “Electron Gun” based on a field emission array of a 100 million molybdenum Nano-cones (instead of the one metal filament used in legacy sources) enabling a controlled and steady generation of electrons using low voltage to achieve the same effect as the legacy X-ray source. The company estimates that its technology can significantly reduce the costs of medical imaging systems down to $10,000 per scanner.

According to a 2012 report from the Pan-American Health Organization and the World Health Organization, approximately two-thirds of the world population did not have access to medical imaging that year, while many people with access to medical imaging face substantial wait times for scanning. The availability of a lower cost device has the potential to substantially expand medical imaging availability and services across the globe.

In January 2020 Nanox has completed a funding round of $26M with participation of strategic investor Foxconn, bringing the total funds raised for the Nanox System project to $55M thus far. Foxconn joined Fujifilm, SK Telecom, and other private investors, who have previously invested in the company.