In a major development in the wellness-screening segment, diagnostic lab screening company Function Health acquired full-body MRI firm Ezra. The companies plan to offer wellness screening that combines lab tests with imaging.
Ezra launched in 2018 with an initial focus on prostate MRI but soon expanded into full-body MRI screening.
- The company has developed AI-enhanced image acceleration algorithms to acquire MRI scans in shorter time slots, enabling it to drive down costs to consumers.
Ezra’s scans are currently available at 100 U.S. locations with the goal of 1k sites in coming months (the company doesn’t run its own centers, but rather partners with existing imaging providers like AMRIC Health).
- Function Health has a similar strategy but in the clinical diagnostics space, offering blood tests available through some 2.2k Quest Diagnostics locations.
Function and Ezra believe that combining lab tests with imaging will support a new level of wellness screening that when coupled with AI will be even more predictive.
- To that end, the companies launched an AI-enhanced 22-minute full-body MRI scan for $499.
The Takeaway
The combination of Function Health and Ezra is an interesting wrinkle in the wellness screening space that promises to make screening even more comprehensive by acquiring both lab and imaging data. The question is whether other screening providers will feel compelled to follow suit.
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