The Memo: Wellumio Revolutionizing Stroke Care with Portable Magnetic Resonance Technology

Under the direction of Co-Founder and CEO Shieak Tzeng, Wellumio is reshaping the future of stroke diagnostics with a portable, Magnetic Resonance-based brain scanner designed to bring advanced imaging directly to the patient’s bedside.

Wellumio’s innovative pulse gradient-free mapping technology delivers MRI-based stroke detection in a fraction of the time and space required for conventional imaging, making rapid diagnosis possible in emergency departments, ICUs, and small hospitals without MRI access.

With its first-in-human feasibility trial underway, a first U.S. site planned for 2025, and preparations for FDA breakthrough designation, Wellumio is poised to make high-quality neuroimaging more accessible and time-efficient than ever before.

Origin Story

Wellumio was founded in New Zealand to transform stroke care by making advanced neuroimaging more accessible and efficient. For Tzeng, Wellumio’s mission is deeply personal. As a former physician, neurovascular scientist, and clinician-researcher, he spent years witnessing the devastating consequences of delayed stroke diagnosis and treatment. Working at the intersection of medical device technology and critical care, he saw firsthand how limited access to imaging delayed life-saving interventions.

His search for better solutions led him to Dr. Sergei Obruchkov, a medical physicist, and Dr. Paul Teal, a biomedical engineer, working on portable magnetic resonance technologies originally designed for industrial applications. Unlike conventional MRI, these systems were built to be highly portable, energy-efficient, and fast, allowing imaging to be performed in environments where traditional scanners were inaccessible.

“In industry, you can’t bring rock samples or ice sheets from Antarctica down to an MRI—you have to build a small, energy-efficient system that can be taken into the field,” Tzeng said. “That’s when I realized—if we can miniaturize MRI technology for remote applications, why can’t we do the same for stroke patients?”

This realization led to the founding of Wellumio, with the goal of bringing MRI-based imaging directly to emergency settings where rapid diagnosis can mean the difference between recovery and permanent disability.

The Current Landscape

Stroke care today is highly centralized, requiring transportation to specialized hospitals with MRI or CT scanners and the expertise to deliver thrombolysis or endovascular clot retrieval therapy. This creates significant delays in both diagnosis and treatment, particularly for patients in rural or resource-limited hospitals. Patients must often be transferred to dedicated stroke centers for proper imaging workup, a process that can introduce critical delays of one to two hours or more.

“The golden hour is everything in stroke care,” Tzeng said. “The faster we diagnose and treat, the more brain function we save. But the reality is that our current system doesn’t allow for that level of efficiency. Fewer than 5% of patients are treated within the golden hour, and 75% of patients wait more than 2 hours to be transferred to a comprehensive stroke center for clot retrieval because of delays in the diagnostic workup.”

Many hospitals, particularly critical access hospitals and primary stroke centers, either lack MRI entirely or have limited imaging capacity, forcing physicians to make treatment decisions without complete diagnostic information. Even at major hospitals, stroke patients must be transported from the emergency department to radiology for imaging, delaying intervention when time is of the essence.

Wellumio’s portable MRI-based stroke scanner eliminates these delays by allowing stroke assessments to be performed at the bedside rather than requiring patient transfers to imaging facilities.

Inside the Innovation

Wellumio’s pulse gradient-free mapping technology is a magnetic resonance-based imaging system that delivers MRI-like results in a compact, portable format. Unlike traditional MRI, which requires massive infrastructure and significant power consumption, Wellumio’s system is designed for speed, mobility, and efficiency.

“Our system is a complete reversal of the traditional stroke imaging model,” Tzeng said. “Instead of moving critically ill patients across the hospital, we bring the scanner to them—delivering an accurate stroke diagnosis in minutes.”

The device is small and mounted on wheels, allowing clinicians to roll it directly to a patient’s bedside. A four-minute scan provides real-time stroke detection, allowing emergency teams to make immediate decisions about triage and treatment. Because the system operates on a fraction of the power required by traditional MRI, it is viable for use in emergency departments, ICUs, and smaller hospitals without MRI access.

The technology offers benefits across a range of hospital settings. At smaller hospitals and critical access facilities, it provides a cost-effective alternative to full-scale MRI, allowing physicians to determine whether a patient needs to be transferred to a comprehensive stroke center or can be safely managed on-site. At primary stroke centers, where imaging capacity is often limited, the system helps clinicians determine which patients require transfers, further advanced imaging, or thrombolysis intervention, optimizing resource allocation. At comprehensive stroke centers, it can be used for post-treatment monitoring, reducing the need for critically ill patients to be moved back and forth between hospital departments. 

Progress and Milestones

Wellumio is making rapid progress toward regulatory approval, clinical validation, and commercialization. The company recently launched its first-in-human feasibility trial in Australia, marking a major step forward in proving both technical feasibility and clinical impact. With patient recruitment underway, the trial serves as a validation of both the technology itself and Wellumio’s ability to bring a device through rigorous testing and quality management processes.

Looking ahead, Wellumio is preparing to expand its clinical trials into the U.S., with plans to activate the first U.S. site in 2025 and launch its pivotal trial in 2026 at major U.S. stroke centers. In parallel, the company is working toward FDA breakthrough designation, a move that could accelerate regulatory approvals and market entry.

The company is also building out its U.S. corporate presence, having established a California-based subsidiary and recruited key medtech industry veterans to lead commercialization and regulatory efforts. The recent hiring of a U.S. general manager with 30 years of medtech experience and a vice president of product development who previously led global product development at GE further strengthens Wellumio’s team as it moves toward market entry.

At the same time, Wellumio has been forging deep connections with leading stroke physicians and hospitals, establishing a U.S. physician advisory board composed of top specialists from prestigious medical centers. These relationships will be instrumental in driving clinical adoption and ensuring successful trial execution.

The company is also actively raising funding, having secured its seed round from a New Zealand venture syndicate and now seeking Series A investment from U.S. medtech investors to support clinical validation and commercialization.

Join Us at LSI Asia ‘25

Tzeng has been selected to present at LSI Asia '25 (June 10-13) in front of hundreds of global medical technology companies. Join us in welcoming Tzeng to the event in Singapore, where he will share the latest updates on Wellumio’s technology and development.