Life sciences and diagnostic equipment maker Aspect Imaging, a division of Singapore-based Aspect International, and design and strategy firm frog, have collaborated to produce a new category of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines.
When Investment Rhymes with Canada
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
The Embrace Neonatal MRI System preps and scans newborn babies in under one hour within a hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Unlike most MRIs, the system doesn’t require other medical equipment, cooling systems or a dedicated, shielded MRI facility.
Frog Creative Director James Luther said the design firm employed human-centered design process to perform field-work in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) throughout the United States and Europe. The goal was to understand “the context, roles, work flow and pain points” in NICUs, eliciting the advice of NICU physicians and nurses and replicating a NICU that included incubators and mock silicone newborns.
Frog also built a “semi-functional” prototype of the new technology that the NICU staff later used to experiment.
“This was critical to verifying the core design decisions and helped to identify refinements,” Luther said.
Through this, Aspect Imaging realized a significant technological innovation: a shielded magnet that makes it safe to place MRI technology within proximity of typical equipment in a hospital ward or clinic. This would allow MRI units to be used outside of the safety areas to which they are currently confined. Consequently, this opens up the possibility of the machines being deployed to address new use cases in a variety of treatment environments.
“This change in the use paradigm means that the most vulnerable babies can be quickly, easily and more safely scanned without transporting them out of the NICU,” Luther noted of the Embrace system.
Currently, Aspect Imaging is placing prototypes in hospital NICUs and gathering data to launch a clinical trial and obtain U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) market approval.
“It’s taken a long time to do the research, planning, design and interim testing,” he said. “Hopefully, in the next 18 months, [Aspect] can use that data to get the product to market.”
The FDA-Cleared WristView MRI system
The Embrace system is currently seeking FDA clearance and CE Mark. Aspect Imaging’s WristView, a hand and wrist scanning machine whose technology is employed in Embrace, has already received regulatory nods in the U.S. and CE Mark countries.
If this vision is realized, hospitals would be able to save money. It would be “many, many times less expensive than current hospital MRI systems, which require infrastructure, dedicated space and cooling systems.” Luther predicted.
“With these products we’re trying to innovate the diagnostic pathway to get these machines out of the standard locations and context they operated in and place them into a more clinical situation,” he said. “One of our biggest objectives is to make the machines safer for everyone involved. We’re steeped in this idea of safety and consistency.”
Aspect Imaging sources confirmed the product will be manufactured in Israel and expects to complete the first installation of Embrace next month there. Aspect raised $20 million in funding in July.
Photo Credit: Getty Images, mathisworks and Aspect Imaging
