Edmonton startup developing portable MRI machine
Posted September 4, 2026 10:17 am.
It may not look like much now, but a local startup hopes these 3D-printed items in a South Edmonton garage will be a game-changer in the medical field, specifically addressing wait times for magnetic resonance imaging, commonly known as MRI, by making it portable.
“So we are trying to make MRI accessible to everybody. Right now they’re locked away into centralized radiology facilities,” said Aaron Purchase, the co-founder and CEO of Magnetamr.
A standard MRI scanner is bolted into a huge cement room, but the prototype would weigh around 550 pounds.
“Wheel it down the hallway, and if you can plug in a toaster or a coffee machine, you can plug this in,” said Shawn Fraser, business development & strategy executive director of Magnetamr.
Right now, many rural patients have to travel for an appointment, but the goal of this machine is to have it move to remote communities.
Hopeful that increasing accessibility will cut down on Alberta’s long wait times for appointments, some waiting months to years.
“The waiting lists for MRIs can be months, sometimes years, so any opportunity to provide access to more MRIs for more patients is a complete win,” said Lindsay Gilbert, the associate VP of Philanthropy of the Alberta Cancer Foundation.
The prototype is significantly cheaper than a standard MRI machine.
“So it could be between $1.5 million or $3 million just to buy a higher field conventional scanner. And here we’re about 10 per cent,” said Purchase.
The startup is getting financial support from the Alberta Cancer Foundation.
“It complements the current system. We still require all the MRIs that we have in our province, and this is just another additional tool that would be available for patients,” said Gilbert.
Magnetamr plans to showcase their prototype next month, but still have to go through regulatory testing to prove it is safe before securing funds for mass production. The founder’s goal is to spread the technology to rural Alberta to save patients a trip into the city for appointments.
