Magnetic Insight announces new CEO, USD 3M in new funding

Magnetic Insight has announced the appointment of Chris A. Raanes as the company’s new CEO effective February 21st, a joint grant with The University of California at Berkeley to dramatically improve the spatial resolution of MPI, and an NIH grant to drive the sensitivity of MPI to the physics limits.

Magnetic Insight specializes in MPI, an innovative tracer imaging technology that offers the sensitivity of nuclear medicine without using radioactive tracers. In contrast to traditional methods, MPI offers enhanced image quality, simple logistics without time-critical deliveries, and no radiation exposure, enabling new applications and improving patient and doctor experience while reducing overall healthcare costs.

Magnetic Insight is primed to make significant advancements in MPI technology, opening doors to a wide range of applications for a variety of medical conditions. The new CEO, Chris A. Raanes, will continue Magnetic Insight’s transition from preclinical to clinical space, changing what is possible in the medical imaging field. Raanes has over twenty years of experience in the medical device sector and imaging, having led imaging and treatment companies through pivotal stages of growth and commercialization. As President and CEO of ViewRay, he brought the company public on the NASDAQ and led the commercial introduction of the MRIdian, an MRI-guided radiation therapy system. He also held executive positions at Accuray Incorporated and Perkin Elmer Optoelectronics. He also served as Spire Health’s CEO, where he supported the commercialization of a wearable sensor for respiratory patients. He holds a B.S. and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“I’m honored to join the Magnetic Insight team, especially at such a pivotal time for groundbreaking research and advancements in the MPI space,” said Raanes. “This technology has the potential to reimagine medical imaging, expanding the field’s capabilities and providing an alternative to using radiation in many critical applications.”

As the worldwide leader in developing a new field of medical imaging, Magnetic Insight is supported by a combination of venture capital funding from leading technology investors, including Celesta Capital and 5AM Ventures, and scientific grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Magnetic Insight was also awarded a multi-million-dollar NIH Phase II Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant to develop the engineering underpinning their clinical MPI imaging platform development. The project addresses the absence of a clinical MPI scanner by building the low-noise electronics necessary for the general-purpose clinical MPI scanner, leveraging innovations in transmit/receive subsystem design and implementation.

This recent grant award augments funding from a separately announced collaborative NIH U01 grant with the University of California Berkeley to dramatically improve Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI) spatial resolution and accelerate imaging applications for CAR-T cell therapies, stroke, gastrointestinal (GI) bleeds, and pulmonary embolisms, and an ongoing collaborative NIH Phase II SBIR grant with Johns Hopkins to integrate magnetic fluid hyperthermia into Magnetic Insight’s clinical imager under development to expand MPI’s application base beyond cancer diagnosis to include cancer treatment.
MB Bureau