MR Solutions, a preclinical MRI manufacturer based in Guildford has won the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the innovation category. This award is announced on the Queen’s birthday, 21 April and is one of the UK’s highest accolades recognising business achievement.

This has been achieved in recognition of MR Solutions’ development of a preclinical multi-modality MRI scanner which does away with the need for liquid helium cooling. In order for high powered MRI scanners to operate the magnet needs to be cooled to a very low temperature (minus 269 degrees centigrade) to achieve superconductivity. Until now this was only possible by immersing the magnet in liquid helium. This approach is very cumbersome, expensive and can pose a safety risk.

MR Solutions was able to develop an MRI system using a novel magnet design, which only needs a readily available cryo-cooler unit to get to the very low temperature required. MR Solutions’ 3T to 7T MRI benchtop scanners are used in research laboratories across the world and can be installed alongside other equipment because the new design has reduced the stray magnetic field.

Dr David Taylor, physicist and CEO of MR Solutions said, “It’s very exciting that the development of our high performance superconducting preclinical MRI scanners has achieved such recognition – we are constantly striving to achieve greater advancement in the preclinical imaging field. With multi-modality imaging – incorporating PET and SPECT – we can really begin to speed up drug development research to help pharmaceutical companies bring the latest drugs to market faster.”

MR Solutions has over 30 years’ experience and in excess of 1000 installations across the world. This includes sales of their MRI spectrometers. Its scanners are renowned for their excellence in terms of superior soft tissue contrast and molecular imaging ability. Their highly trained network of global distributors provides back up and support.