The start-up taking on the US hospital system
6/26/202633 min
4DMedical has become one of the most closely watched healthcare companies on the ASX this year, as investors and hospitals alike pay attention to an Australian technology company trying to change how lung disease is detected and treated.
Andreas Fouras is the mechanical engineer behind it. He took technology originally developed to study airflow in wind tunnels and adapted it to measure airflow and blood flow inside the human body. Two decades later, 4DMedical is selling into some of America’s biggest hospitals, showing how Australian medical imaging technology can find a much bigger market offshore.
Alan Kohler speaks to Fouras about how the technology works, why US hospitals are paying up for it, the long road from research idea to commercial product, and the complexities of getting homegrown health technology into Australian hospitals.
Then there is the question of cost - and the ethics around big profit margins in a medical setting. And what does Fouras make of the new capital gains tax rules for startups trying to build the next wave of Australian growth?
CEO of 4DMedical Andreas Fouras joins Alan Kohler to unpack it all on That's Business with Alan Kohler.
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First 90 secondsPatricia Karvelas0:00
[upbeat music] ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music, and more [upbeat music] Hi, I'm Patricia Karvelas, the host of the ABC's politics podcast, Politics Now. The budget was the pitch. This week, the real test begins. Can Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers land their key measures, or will Parliament force Labor back to the negotiating table? We're watching the deals, the pressure points, and the political consequences, the final biffo before the big winter break. We'll bring you up to date on Politics Now. Follow on ABC Listen so you never miss an episode.
Alan Kohler· Host0:36
[upbeat music] One of the hottest stocks on the ASX this year is 4DMedical. Its share price has gone from 25 cents a year ago to $4.50 now, and it's currently worth around about $2.7 billion. And its founder and CEO, Andreas Forusz, owns about 15% of that, so $400 million worth. Forusz is a mechanical engineer who was working on wind tunnels at Monash University and had this realization that he could use the technology to measure airflow and blood flow in the human body. 20 years later, he now spends most of his time in the United States selling this technology that he invented to American hospitals for a huge markup, and he's going