Winter Springs’ IRadimed Advancing MRI Patient Care With Portable Pumps
10 Tech Leaders: IRadimed.
IRadimed makes non-magnetic MRI infusion pumps and patient monitors.
Since its founding in 2004, IRadimed has filled a vital niche in MRI patient care, providing portable, non-magnetic MRI infusion pumps and patient monitors designed to help improve patient safety. Based in Winter Springs, the technology company has 151 employees, 111 of them in the Orlando area, who develop, manufacture on site and market MRI compatible medical devices. The rest work globally.
Roger Susi, the founder, president and chief executive officer of IRadimed Corporation caught the tinkering bug early in life and later parlayed that inquisitive spirit into two medical start-ups: InVivo Research Inc. (sold in 2007) and more recently, IRadimed, with its MRI infusion pump and other non-magnetic medical devices.
Although, clinically, MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, has been available as a diagnostic tool for more than three decades, increasingly, these powerful imaging scans are also used for guiding interventional procedures and planning and gating radiation therapy to compensate for tumor movement during treatment. Unlike traditional X-ray technology, MRIs don’t expose patients to ionizing radiation, which can damage DNA and raise the cancer risk. However, they do carry known hazards associated with the machine’s strong, static magnetic field.
IRadimed makes non-magnetic MRI infusion pumps and patient monitors.
In the most recent data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration there were 1,568 adverse events involving MRI procedures done between January 2008 and December 2017. Heat burns from radio frequency waves topped the list as the most reported serious injury, followed by slips, falls, crushing injuries, hearing issues linked to the magnets’ loud clacking and even rare projectile events.
Because IRadimed’s medical devices are non-magnetic, their patented technology lessens many of these risks. The MRI IV Infusion Pump product provides precise and accurate continuous delivery of medications, while the MRI Patient Monitor collects and measures patient’s vital signs during each procedure—features that have broadened access for patients who might otherwise be ineligible. Among them are critically ill patients unable to go off medication during an exam and those in need of sedation to enter the tight space of the MRI environment.
In 2023, Forbes magazine ranked IRadimed among the top 100 best small-cap companies in the country, moving from 59th to 11th place, reflected in executives’ recent decision to relocate to larger headquarters in Central Florida by 2025.
Susi considers this achievement humbling. “I am proud to be part of a technology that has made a positive difference in so many people’s lives,” he says.
