Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology Dr Jitendra Singh recently launched India’s first indigenously developed, affordable, lightweight, ultrafast, high field (1.5 Tesla), next generation Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner in New Delhi.

Dr Jitendra Singh said that it is indeed a milestone achievement for National Biopharma Mission (NBM), Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) and Department of Biotechnology (DBT) as we unveil the first indigenously developed state-of-the-art MRI Scanner under Public-Private Partnership mode.

Under the National Biopharma Mission, Bengaluru-based startup Voxelgrids Innovations Pvt Ltd has developed a compact, lightweight, next generation MRI Scanner to solve the unmet need of the country.

The Minister underlined that out of Rs 17 crore spent for developing the world class MRI scanner, Rs 12 Crore was provided by DBT through BIRAC.

Dr Jitendra Singh pointed out that 70% of the world’s population has zero access to Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) diagnostic modality. On comparing other imaging modalities such as CT, X-ray and Ultrasound, access to MRI scanners is typically a factor of 3 less. The reason is prohibitively high capital costs which is a problem in developing counties like India. Current estimates in India indicate that the total installed base of MRI is 4800, which is 3X lower than CT, which is possibly due to high cost and import dependency of this product.