Arjun Arunachalam, Founder of VoxelGrids In a major milestone for Made-In-India medtech, VoxelGrids, a Zoho-backed start-up, has developed the country’s first indigenous MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scanner. The scanner, which has been deployed at Chandrapur Cancer Care Foundation near Nagpur, is the culmination of a 12-year mission by Founder Arjun Arunachalam and his team to domestically design and build an MRI system – a critical diagnostic tool for hospitals, which currently relies almost entirely on foreign imports. Interestingly, the machine, with a Magnetic Field Strength of 1.5 tesla, is not just a locally made version of MRIs from global giants like Siemens or GE HealthCare but comes with its own technological advancements, he told businessline. VoxelGrids’ MRI scanners, due to the absence of liquid helium, are around 40 per cent cheaper to build, he added. “Additionally, we have been able to make the electronics around the magnet extremely well-packaged while maintaining the same bore-size making it far more power efficient and reducing operating costs exponentially,” he said. Arjun Arunachalam, Founder of VoxelGrids with the comapany’s India- made MRI in Chandrapur Cancer hospital Arunachalam added that the company also offers pay-per-use models, allowing hospitals to pay for MRI machines dynamically over time. This is particularly important for smaller hospitals that may not be able to afford the high one-time cost, thereby significantly expanding MRI footprint in India, he said. The improved footprint would be crucial, as recent industry analyses indicate only around 5,000 MRI machines in India, an estimated density of 3.5 machines per million people. According to a market study by the Competition Commission of India, the top 5 OEMs (Siemens, GE, Philips, United Imaging, and Hitachi) have over 91 per cent market share in terms of revenue in the MRI market in India. Arunachalam adds that while the company has not yet made a full commercial launch, it already has the capacity to make 20-25 such scanners per year at its Bengaluru manufacturing facility. “We have had a lot of interest from many hospitals and are expecting a commercial launch by the end of this fiscal year,” he said. The company had secured $5 million in funding from Zoho and will eye a larger round as it approaches volume production, he added. Looking ahead, VoxelGrids’ team is also working to further improve their MRI machines, including developing a containerised mobile version. Though the current focus is on serving domestic demand, Arunachalam did not rule out an export market in the long term.