Medison shows fruits of expansion plan

Korean ultrasound vendor Medison America (Hall A, #1345) has undergone a major expansion campaign since last year's conference. The Pleasanton, CA, company aspires to break out of its niche in low-end ultrasound with a series of new product introductions at this year's meeting.

The key to Medison's growth plan is Voluson 530D, an upgraded version of the Combison 530 3-D ultrasound scanner that Medison acquired with its purchase of Kretztechnik in 1996. Medison has added an all-new 128-channel digital beamformer that uses application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), according to Peter Klein, president and CEO of Medison America. Medison plans to market Voluson 530D as a high-end ultrasound scanner that can also do 3-D imaging, rather than as a dedicated 3-D system, Klein said.

In conventional 2-D ultrasound, Medison also has two new product introductions, both of which are based on digital ultrasound technology. SonoAce 6000 is a lower mid-range system targeted at ob/gyn and surgical applications that will sell for just under $40,000. SonoAce 8800 is a work-in-progress color Doppler scanner with a 64-channel beamformer that will sell for about $80,000. SonoAce 6000 began selling in August, while SonoAce 8800 requires FDA clearance.

Medison also has designs on the MRI market and introduced the 1-tesla Magnum scanner at last year's meeting. This year, the company will feature the addition of fast spin-echo and 3-D gradient-echo sequences for the investigational scanner. Images acquired with the company's new 3-tesla whole-body scanner in South Korea will be displayed.