Micro X-ray Technology completed ~￥100M strategic financing, creating the "new engine"of China-developed high-end medical imaging industry

Recently, Micro X-ray Technology, an innovative medical device company and a national high-tech enterprise focusing on high-end medical imaging core component solutions, announced the successful completion of nearly 100 million yuan in strategic financing. This round of financing was led by Bainuo Capital, with participation from Hongde Investment. The funds will be mainly used for high-end CT ball tube research and development, production line expansion and market development at home and abroad, which will further consolidate its key position in the field of medical imaging core components of domestic substitution.

Micro X-ray Technology's R&D and Manufacturing Base in Xiangcheng District, Suzhou

In the context of the continuous advancement of the localization of medical equipment, high-end imaging equipment such as CT is accelerating into the update cycle. As the "heart" of medical CT equipment, CT ball tube has high localization difficulty and long cycle, especially the core components of ball tube such as liquid metal bearing and rotating anode target plate. Due to high technical threshold, long verification cycle, complex manufacturing process and great difficulty in large-scale manufacturing, it has been monopolized by foreign manufacturers and has become the "neck-stuck" link in the domestic medical imaging industry chain.

Although China-developed  CT ball tube industry has developed rapidly in recent years, enterprises that can truly achieve product quality benchmarking against international brands, have stable mass production capacity and can manufacture their core components independently are still extremely scarce in Chinese imaging industry.

Founded in 2021, Micro X-ray Technology is China-developed high-end CT ball tube industry technology breakout. Since its establishment, Micro X-ray Technology has rapidly built a full-chain R & D and manufacturing platform covering materials, processes, design, research and development, and testing by virtue of its deep technical accumulation, and is the first CT ball tube enterprise in China to realize the independent manufacturing of the two core components of liquid metal bearings and anode target discs at the same time.

Micro X-ray Technology has successfully built a complete production line of high-specification liquid metal bearings, realizing the mass production of molybdenum-based liquid metal bearings, greatly filling the market gap of insufficient large-scale supply of China-developed high-end liquid shaft CT ball tubes, and providing a more stable and controllable choice of core components for China-developed CT machine manufacturers and medical institutions.

Up to now, Micro X-ray Technology has applied for more than 50 patents, to achieve the target plate, liquid metal bearings, flat filament and other core components of the autonomous control, forming a complete capacity from the core components to the whole tube manufacturing closed loop.

The traditional ball bearing ball tube is limited by mechanical wear and heat dissipation bottleneck, the service life is generally low, while the traditional liquid metal bearing ball tube uses molybdenum alloy material, and there is a high cost industry pain point. The double dilemma restricts the ball tube industry's technological iterative upgrade.

In response to this dilemma, Micro X-ray Technology has built a complete molybdenum-based liquid bearing production line and achieved stable mass production of liquid bearing CT ball tubes. As a result, Micro X-ray Technology has built a barrier from ball bearings to liquid metal bearings.

On this basis, the R & D team of Micro X-ray Technology has successfully developed a new type of liquid metal bearing made of special steel through material, process and cost reconstruction. The cost of the steel-based liquid bearing is only 20% of the cost of the molybdenum-based liquid shaft while ensuring that the performance is not affected, thus cracking the pain point of the high cost of the liquid bearing. Micro X-ray Technology has also become the first company in China to master the manufacturing technology of two liquid metal bearings, molybdenum alloy and special steel. Its technical scheme is expected to replace the traditional ball bearing ball tube and molybdenum-based liquid shaft tube scheme at low cost, providing a new path for the upgrading of the core components of medical imaging equipment.

With this technological breakthrough, Micro X-ray Technology has also become the third company in the world to master the solution (after GE and Canon), forming a significant technology generation advantage.

Micro X-ray Technology's Self-developed Special Steel Liquid Metal Bearing

At the product level, Micro X-ray Technology has built a matrix of tube products covering CT, DR and other types of medical imaging scenes. Among them, MXR350, MXR360, MXR680, MXR750 and MXR180 and other core models have obtained medical device registration certificates, widely adapted to different levels of hospitals, third-party imaging centers and medical institutions and other application scenarios.

At the same time, MXR365, MXR700P and MXR700S products will also be certified in the near future, further expanding the company's product matrix in the middle and high-end CT tube market and providing better quality products for a wider range of customers.

Micro X-ray Technology Product Series

After this round of financing, Micro X-ray Technology will increase investment in research and development, expand product lines, accelerate the research and development of high-end new models of ball tube products such as MXR800, MXR200S/P, MXR900, and expand the layout of ultra-high-end CT ball tubes, DSA ball tubes and ball tube products in specialized medical fields. At the same time, Micro X-ray Technology will expand the production scale of core components, to the majority of ball tube manufacturers to provide core components for the industrial chain.

At the market end, Micro X-ray Technology will deepen the synergy with existing partners, rely on the national agency system, broaden Chinese market coverage. Meanwhile, it will accelerate its overseas market expansion plan, promote the China-developed ball tube to the international mainstream market.

Investors said that the localization of core components of medical imaging is an important direction for the upgrading of the national medical industry.With solid technology accumulation, complete product matrix and efficient commercialization ability, Micro X-ray Technology has established its core competitiveness in the sub-track of medical CT ball tube. The technology path of Micro X-ray Technology proves that China is fully capable of establishing new global benchmarks and standards in the field of high-end medical equipment. Its special steel liquid metal bearing solution offers both performance and cost advantages, a combination that represents the key leap for China-developed liquid-bearing CT tubes from being "available" to being "user-friendly". As an investor, I believe that Micro X-ray Technology will accelerate product coverage and market expansion, and promote the leapfrog development of China-developed CT ball tube industry.

With the continuous promotion of the wave of domestic substitution of medical equipment, Micro X-ray Technology will strive to become the world's leading medical X-ray tube research and development and production manufacturer by virtue of the multiple advantages of technology self-research and capacity guarantee and channel deep cultivation and industrial chain empowerment model, and contribute to the autonomy of the core components of China's medical equipment.