About EchoMRI

Company Background

EchoMRI - international medical device company with headquarters in Singapore and Houston, develops, manufactures, and markets NMR-MRI and CT-based whole body composition and tissue characterization equipment for use by metabolic research laboratories, the pharmaceutical industry and hospitals, and other medical facilities. The class-defining EchoMRI™ technology is unique: it facilitates low-cost, rapid, highly precise, in-vivo measurements of humans and animals without anesthesia, sedation, or restraints.

The EchoMRI™ proprietary method for tissue characterization provides measurements of whole body composition parameters: fat mass, lean tissue mass, free water, and total body water. These measurements have been validated versus chemical analysis in several different studies. The typical duration of EchoMRI™ measurements is 0.5 – 3.2 minutes, depending on the precision option.

EchoMRI™ results are also highly correlated with those obtained by DXA, but EchoMRI™ is faster and more precise, and DXA is also at disadvantage because of its need to anesthetize animals.

Today, many EchoMRI™ and LaTheta™ systems are successfully used by more than 80 pharmaceutical companies and more than 100 universities and other leading research institutions in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia for metabolic and obesity research in live animals. As drug development progresses from animal studies to human trials, there has been growing demand by EchoMRI customers to apply EchoMRI™ in clinical trials for adult humans. In response, EchoMRI has developed new systems for infants, children, and adult humans, aimed at providing a solution to the pharmaceutical and medical industries for testing the efficacy in clinical trials of anti-obesity and metabolic drugs and treatments.

EchoMRI has a strong position in the underlying technology and methods of NMR-MRI-CT-based whole body and tissue composition analysis, and sophisticated proprietary know-how for tissue characterization applications in obesity, diabetes, nutrition research, pharmacology, osteoporosis, and cardiology. Beyond the existing applications, extensions of the technology are underway to measure additional body composition parameters.

Our Technology

EchoMRI™ Body Composition Analyzers for animals and humans take direct measurements of total body fat, lean mass, free water, and total body water.

More rapid and precise than other methods, EchoMRI™ technology facilitates fast measurements in vivo without anesthesia, sedation, or restraint. Unlike DXA, EchoMRI™ measurements are radiation-free, do not require the subject to remain still, and so facilitates convenient, low-stress, repeated tracking of small changes in body composition. Moreover, EchoMRI™ instruments measure fat and lean mass as independent characteristics, unlike DXA, which measures the fat to lean ratio. The EchoMRI™ systems are much less expensive than conventional MRI, are completely silent, and do not require advanced training to use.

EchoMRI™ is the only technology on the market today which allows body composition analyses to be conducted in such a short period of time, with such a high level of precision, without the need for anesthesia or sedation of the test subjects, with the subjects entirely comfortable during and in preparation for the measurement, and with no radiation to be considered as a health issue.

LaTheta™ CT Scanner is designed for small animals and intended especially for the in-vivo small animal research and possesses several distinctive features.

Its 60X-more sensitive detector than those of other micro CTs allows work to be conducted with a low energy x-ray source, thus reducing subject radiation exposure to 2-8 mSv and greatly increasing the ability to conduct longitudinal studies. Moreover, the scanner’s detector is extremely fast in terms of scanning and reconstruction times (4.5 seconds to 8 minutes depending on the region of interest), enabling results viewing during an acquisition and the freedom to make parameter modifications even after the first slice is displayed. In addition, the high contrast and remarkably low noise level provide excellent resolution when comparing tissues of a similar density (i.e. visceral organs).

LaTheta™ accommodates a wide range of animals, including rats up to 1.5 kg. Its quantification of the scanned images implemented in the software includes visceral, subcutaneous and total fat volume, BMD, mechanical strength and morphology with automatic cortical/trabecular bone recognition, etc. The software is very easy to operate and does not require any special training. Finally, LaTheta™ is conveniently compact and mobile (four casters attached for high mobility), and its low outside radiation exposure enables researchers to use it in any room.