Dr. Raymond Damadian didn't win the Nobel Prize for the MRI, but he is widely credited as taking the technology of magnetic resonance imaging - and applying it to medicine.
Damadian founded Fonar, a company that makes MRIs, sued General Electric for patent infringement, and won $103.4 million. And for many years, Fonar continued simply making and improving MRI equipment, while selling devices to others.
Fonar has, however, gradually transitioned into a company that also operates the centers itself. And doing the scans, it turns out, is proving profitable - as Fonar does more and more of them - and opens more centers.
M RI maker and operator Fonar is doing more MRI scans than ever, increasing the number of scans it does and sites it operates, as it continues to transition from a company that makes MRIs to one that also operates the centers itself.
The Melville-based firm that makes MRIs now manages 26 diagnostic imaging centers, including 19 in New York and seven in Florida, collectively equipped with 35 MRI scanners.
The imaging centers that Fonar owns and manages completed 184,000 MRI scans in fiscal 2019, as compared to 176,000 in fiscal 2018.
Revenues from centers increased by 8 percent to $77.2 million as compared to $71.7 million one year earlier.
And the company plans to continue opening more centers with its Stand Up-MRI, where scans can be done while people stand, rather than lying down.
This can reveal some bone breaks and problems due to the weight placed on muscles and bones.
“After a thorough evaluation of the demographics, the prevalent local medical insurance carriers, and the competitive landscape in several areas of Florida, we’ve chosen a very promising location for our next de novo enterprise, one that fits perfectly into our existing network,” Dr. Damadian said in a written statement. “The real estate lease has been signed and we are fully engaged in site preparation and the installation of the first MRI in what will be a two-MRI facility.”
He said the company is “also expanding business at three existing facilities.” Damadian said that was being done “in order to meet the MRI demands of referring physicians and their patients and to reduce the backlog of those waiting to be scanned, we are adding second MRI scanners at two of our New York facilities as well as a second MRI at one of our Florida facilities..”
Dr. Damardian last year won the‘The Excellence in Medicine Medal of Honor’ from the Chiari & Syringomyelia Foundation at Brooks’s in London, England.
Dr. Fraser Henderson, M.D., a neurosurgeon and a member of the steering committee for the Chiari & Syringomyelia Foundation said Damadian "revolutionized medicine with the discovery and development of MRI.”
Professor Dr. Donlin Long, M.D., former Chairman of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University, called it: “the single most important diagnostic discovery in the history of all of medicine.”
The award citation irefered to how in 1970, Damadian made the discovery "that is the basis for MR scanning," noting "a marked difference in relaxation times between normal and abnormal tissues of the same type, as well as between different types of normal tissues."
"This seminal discovery, which remains the basis for the making of every MRI image ever produced, is the foundation of the MRI industry," according to the citatoin.
The company ittself is doing better and better, although its income fell for the year due to a change in tax payments.
Fonar’s income from operations for the fiscal year ended June 30 increased 12 percent, to $22.1 million, while revenue rose 7 percent to $87.2 million.
Fonar’s net income, however, plummeted 19 percent to $20.5, due to a shift from a $5.7 million tax benefit to $2 million paid in taxes.
Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the U.S. corporate income tax rate was reduced to 21 percent, effective January 1, 2018.
That resulted in a 27.7 percent rate for Fonar in fiscal 2018 and a statutory income tax rate of 21 percent for all subsequent fiscal years.
But Fonar has a “ net deferred tax asset” primarily relating to its net operating loss carryforwards available to offset future taxable income through 2030.
That “lowered the net income for the current fiscal year as compared to the prior year.”
The net operating losses begin to expire in 2021 for federal tax and state income tax purposes.
“Given the company’s available net operating loss carryforwards, a substantial portion of the income tax expense for the current year will not require cash outlay,” Fonar said.
Net income for the year ended June 30, 2018 includes $4.9 million in loss carry forwards.
