March 22, 2021

An early easter egg

Nanox removed the link to its Mammography white paper from its webpage sometime in January 2021 (the paper was first published in late November 2020 in the company's RSNA 2020 virtual booth, and then a link to it was posted on the front webpage in December 2020).  There must be something very important there for Nanox to remove it

Maybe it is this:

The first application for [Nanox novel x-ray source] technology is breast tomosynthesis using Nanox’s small X-ray sources in an arrayed series.

Proposed stationary array head (design concept)

Doesn't look much like the multi-source Nanox.Arc, which is supposed to be the first commercial device using the proposed Nanox source, does it?

The paper itself is self-contradictory.  It claims on page 14 that the scan time of one 3D image in present breast tomosynthesis is 15 seconds - moving tube between shots.  But on page 17, the paper admits that the gantry of the 10-year old Hologic machine takes only a total of 4 seconds for the scan (this old intro confirms it).

Why is this important?  Fujifilm, the first potential licensee for Nanox source (see page 88 and II-3 in this registration statement), declined to license the technology when its rights expired in June 2020, but Nanox insists that Fujifilm is still its strategic shareholder and a Mammography OEM (presentation slides 3 and 35 from JP Morgan conference in January 2021).  Nanox also told the press in March 2020 that its Nanox.Arc can perform no-squish mammography, which, of course, it can't (not even in theory):

It could perform tests such as ... a no-squish mammogram for women.

More later.

Update March 31, 2021:  Nanox promoters insist that Fujifilm invested in Nanox.  According to Nanox draft registration statement filings with the SEC, that is not really correct.  For example, the December 2019 filing states that in May 2019, Nanox Gibraltar (that is not Nanox, but its predecessor) issued 1,583,710 ordinary shares to FUJIFILM Corporation for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $3.5 million, and in exchange FUJIFILM was granted a right to first negotiation for license - a right that FUJIFILM declined to exercise and it expired.  A draft filed in August 2020 mentions the same number of shares, but the prospectuses filed in August 2020 and February 2021 do not mention any Fuji shares.  It is rather strange that the number of shares remained the same between December 2019 and August 2020, as a January 2020 press release by Nanox implied that Fujifilm participated in another funding round.

Foxconn is joining Fujifilm, SK Telecom, and other private investors, who have previously invested in the project, as part of a round that is aimed to support Nanox’s development, commercialization, and deployment of its Nanox System.

The press release, issued just before the supposed submission for FDA clearance, is also remarkable because it proves that the Nanox device (presumably, the multi-source one) cannot be cleared. 

The Nanox System is composed of the Nanox.Arc, a novel digital X-ray device...

Novel devices, by the dictionary definition, are obviously not substantially equivalent to any device on the market. 

Update April 12, 2021:  Nanox promoters continue to insist that Fujifilm invested in Nanox, citing a crunchbase entry about the Series B round.   However, it appears crunchbase simply misread the tricky Nanox press release.  

Foxconn is joining Fujifilm, SK Telecom, and other private investors, who have previously invested in the project, as part of a round that is aimed to support Nanox’s development, commercialization, and deployment of its Nanox System.

See, the press release never states that Fujifilm invested or is about to invest in Nanox.  It says that Fujifilm invested in "the project" (that is, Nanox Gibraltar, a Nanox predecessor).  And it does not say that Fujifilm is participating in this round.  In any case, all subsequent SEC filings confirm that Fujifilm did not invest in Nanox - either in that round or thereafter.  As confirmed by the recent annual report, Fujifilm is neither a strategic investor in Nanox nor a Mammography OEM for Nanox, contrary to all investor presentations. 


see, for example, page 3 and 35 in January 2021 presentation at JPM conf.

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