Time Medical (TM), a Hong Kong-based medical imaging company, officially opened its new production facility at the MARS Centre at Tai Po InnoPark on March 16, 2023. The facility is the first large-scale medical equipment production facility in Hong Kong and the largest MRI production base in the Greater Bay Area and Southeast Asia. At the centre of this milestone is NEONA — the world’s first superconducting MRI system dedicated to neonates.
NEONA: Designed for the World’s Most Vulnerable Patients
NEONA is a dedicated superconducting MRI system designed specifically for neonates and infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). It is lightweight and compact, requiring no quench pipe, meaning it can be installed directly inside or adjacent to the NICU. This eliminates the dangerous need to transport critically ill newborns to a standard MRI room. NEONA is described by Time Medical as ‘small and light, fast and safe’.
Production Scale and Commercial Ambition
The Tai Po facility has an annual production capacity of 200 units and an estimated annual output value of HK$1.5 billion. With approximately 8,000 NICUs globally representing the addressable market, Time Medical intends to export NEONA to the US, Europe, and mainland China. The facility also produces EMMA, Time Medical’s dedicated breast screening superconductor MRI system.
Leadership and Academic Roots
Dr Q.Y. Ma, Founder and CEO of Time Medical, noted at the opening that the team built the first MRI prototype for infants within the R&D ecosystem at Hong Kong Science Park. The company’s R&D team has its roots in Columbia University, Harvard Medical School, and the University of Hong Kong. Professor Dong Sun, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry, formally opened the facility.