“It’s faster, easier and more accessible.”
Mars’ scanner has a 12cm bore for a hand or wrist scan and costs about US$500,000 ($870,000).
Mahapatra said fullsize CT scanners, which have a bore large enough to slide a patient on a bed into, cost between US$3m and US$5m.
Unlike traditional low-resolution, black-and-white CT scanners, Mars delivers high-resolution, 3D colour images of the body, enabling faster and more accurate material differentiation and diagnosis, the company said.
The compact system visualises soft tissue, bone, blood vessels and metallic implants in detail, without the need to inject X-ray contrast agents into the patient.
Mahapatra said another point of difference is Microlab emits 5% of the radiation of a traditional CT scanner. “You can safely sit beside it and sip a cup of coffee.”
Mars, founded in 2007, has just been cleared for sales in New Zealand. On December 4, it announced the sale of a scanner, which was bought by the Faculty of Medicine at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.
Mahapatra expects approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the next two months. Mars already has a research partnership with the Hospital for Special Surgery, a specialist orthopaedic facility in New York.
There is also a scanner in Switzerland and “hospitals and institutions in the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Hong Kong, Prague, Switzerland and New Zealand.”
CERN tech
The Medipix X-ray detector at the heart of the Christchurch company’s CT scanner was developed for CERN’s Large Hadron Collider – the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator.
Canterbury physics professor Phil Butler saw the Medipix chip’s X-ray potential and secured worldwide exclusive rights to its use in biomedical small animal and medical imaging.
Butler, who today bills himself as “mostly retired”, is on Mars’ board while his son Anthony Butler, a professor of radiology at the University of Otago, is the company’s chief technology officer.
Mars has 21 staff.
Siemens and other multinational players have launched full-body scanners that use the same spectral photon-counting technology as Mars, but Mahapatra believed his firm can win when it comes to portability.
Mahapatra was, until recently, chief executive of fast-growing Christchurch company, Fabrum, which has been riding the hydrogen boom.
He followed a nanotechnology degree with studies at London Business School, and said venture capital and sales are key skills.
“I’m a growth guy. My job is to push product out and sell.”
Where the money came from
New Zealand-based venture capital firm Pacific Channel led the round, which was raised in two tranches: $7.6m in an initial close, followed by $7.4m in new capital in 2026.
New international investors include a Singapore-based medtech company, Six Rays, and an investor from Switzerland, secured through the New Zealand Government’s Active Investor Plus (AIP) or Golden Visa programme introduced last April.
Mahapatra said the $15m would be used for go-to-market efforts, including hiring sales staff in New Zealand and North America.
In November, Immigration NZ said it had received 443 applications for the new AIP visa, with 312 approved in principle and 93 of those 312 granted residency.
Two new, lower-threshold investor visa categories were introduced: one for those willing to put at least $5m into “growth” investments such as venture capital and the other for those willing to put at least $10m in “balanced” investments.
The total committed investment from these applications amounted to $594.3m, Immigration NZ said in a November update.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
