MIDAS SHARE TIPS: Diagnosis? Invest in medical tech marvel Spectral MD

Wensheng Fan was studying in Beijing when the Tiananmen Square protests erupted in 1989. Soon afterwards, the young Chinese student applied for a scholarship at an American university. He was accepted and has been a proud US citizen ever since.

Today, Fan runs Spectral MD , a Texas-based firm that has developed a tool to predict how and whether wounds will heal. Known as DeepView, it uses medical imaging and sophisticated artificial intelligence to provide highly accurate diagnoses in less than a second.

The technology was seized upon by the US government, which has provided Spectral with more than £65 million of funding over the past ten years to research and develop DeepView for use on burn victims, many of whom suffer terribly from delayed diagnosis on treatment. Now, the government is keen to deploy a burn diagnostic tool in hospitals and has asked companies, including Spectral to tender for the job.

Fan has high hopes of success, given Spectral’s relationship with the US government.

But the firm is also developing DeepView for use on diabetic foot ulcers, which afflict around a quarter of all diabetes sufferers and which can lead to amputations if they are left untreated.

Spectral’s technology allows doctors to spot from the start whether a foot ulcer needs advanced care or not, saving valuable time and potentially changing lives.

Trials are ongoing here and in America and commercial sales are likely to follow.

Midas verdict: Several UK companies are considering moving from the London market to America but US-based Spectral chose to list in London, joining Aim in 2021. At 31p, the shares should go far. The US government believes in this business and the market opportunity for DeepView is huge. Buy.

Traded on: AIM Ticker: SMD Contact: spectralmd.com or 001 972 499 4934