Australian X-ray technology company Micro-X said it will develop the world's first full-body mobile CT following the award of an up to $16.4 million development contract from the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H).
The contract to develop a lightweight and portable full body CT comes under the U.S. government agency’s Platform Accelerating Rural Access to Distributed and Integrated Medical Care (PARADIGM) program. PARADIGM aims to address the current challenges in accessing rural health, by creating a scalable vehicle-based platform that provides advanced medical services out of hospital.
ARPA-H will fund the development of the medical device over five years, subject to ARPA-H option, through to FDA premarket submission (501k).
Using Micro-X's small but powerful Nano Electronic X-ray (NEX) Technology X-ray tubes, the company aims to deliver a full body CT weighing fewer than 500 pounds, compared to conventional CTs that weigh more than 4,400 pounds. This technology has previously been advanced through Micro-X development contracts awarded by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Australian Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).
Conventional CT holds the largest share (approximately 30%) of the global medical imaging market and is the current medical imaging standard for a wide range of diagnoses including cardiac imaging, trauma diagnosis, cancer screening, and lung screening.
