For people living with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, treatment is becoming more sophisticated but one fundamental challenge remains: how do you know which treatment will work for which patient?
MRI can show what is happening inside the brain. But traditionally, much of that information has been interpreted through relatively broad measures and visual assessment.
Quantified Imaging (QI) is working to change that. Co-founded by Professor Michael Chappell and Dr Tom Kirk, QI is turning years of academic research into technology with the potential to make the diagnosis and treatment of brain disease more precise. The company is developing software that makes MRI scans more useful across the diagnosis, treatment and development of therapies for brain disease, starting with dementia and Alzheimer's.
The technology uses Bayesian inference and physiological modelling developed at the University of Nottingham to extract quantitative measures of brain health from MRI scans. For doctors, this identifies which patients are most likely to benefit from a treatment and monitor how they respond. For pharmaceutical companies, it can select patients for clinical trials and measure treatment outcomes.
Since spinning out of the University of Nottingham in 2023, QI has moved rapidly from academic research towards commercialisation.
The university provided pre-seed funding and has continued to support the company as it has developed. QI has also secured two Innovate UK grants to advance its MRI technology for dementia diagnosis.
In October 2024, the company signed its first commercial partnership, licensing its software for a clinical trial investigating blood-brain-barrier integrity. Since then, it has continued to build commercial traction, signing further software licences for clinical trials, executing an R&D project for a top-three pharmaceutical company, and setting up clinical pilots at four US hospitals. And in June 2026, QI received US regulatory clearance on its minimum viable product from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
£2m raised including £600k in non-diluting grants
Two Innovate UK grants awarded
Three commercial contracts, fourth imminent
Pilots underway at four US hospitals
FDA approval for its first clinical product secured
Follow-on product under development
The company is pursuing two parallel routes to market.
QI's first clinical product, which enables accurate measurement of blood flow in the brain across multiple diseases, received FDA clearance in June 2026 and is now being deployed in clinical pilots with QI's research collaborators. This will allow QI to develop market recognition and operational experience, whilst also providing a foundation on which the next product is already being built. This will be tailored specifically to predicting and monitoring outcomes on dementia treatment, which is a crucial missing link in dementia care today. The market opportunity is growing as new Alzheimer's treatments reach patients. QI estimates that, even with only 1% of the eligible population receiving treatment, the market is already worth approximately $1.5bn annually.
Quantified Imaging have kindly shared the image below that shows the progress of successful Alzheimer's disease treatment using lecanemab, captured in real-time using QI's MRI technology.
At the same time, QI is already generating revenue through pharmaceutical R&D. Its MRI software is commercially licensed into two clinical trials, with a third going through setup. It has also completed a pilot research contract with a top-three pharmaceutical company developing Alzheimer's treatments. This market provides QI with valuable scientific and technical validation and allows the company to demonstrate the broad applicability of its platform technology: beyond dementia, QI's clinical trial partners are exploring obesity and psychiatry.
QI's immediate priorities are:
Validation: continue to acquire data demonstrating the accuracy of its technology for predicting and monitoring dementia treatment outcomes
Regulatory: secure FDA approval for its dementia treatment monitoring product
Commercial: secure first clinical revenue from a US hospital contract and secure a larger clinical trials contract
Longer term, the opportunity is to use QI's MRI technology as a platform for precision medicine across neurological diseases, rather than simply as a way of producing images.
That is the company's plan, not a forecast. Regulatory approval, clinical validation and commercial adoption remain key risks. As is the case across healthcare, progress can be slow due to external structural challenges, particularly so given that dementia is a historically under-served disease and healthcare systems need time to adapt.
Nevertheless, there are encouraging precedents for exit, most likely via strategic acquisition. Key examples include Icometrix (acquired for $130m in 2025), Life Molecular Imaging (acquired for $750m in 2025) and Avid Radiopharmaceuticals (acquired for $800m in 2010).
Quantified Imaging is one of the companies to come out of the University of Nottingham. University of Nottingham EIS Fund I, which SyndicateRoom runs with Nottingham Technology Ventures, the university's venture arm, gives outside investors an EIS route into the university's next spin-outs.
Quantified Imaging is an existing university portfolio company. It is not a holding of University of Nottingham EIS Fund I, and there is no guarantee the fund will invest in it. The fund has not yet invested: it deploys from December 2026 into 6 to 8 companies.
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