Need to get familiar with the focused ultrasound market?

Focused ultrasound is a real business, but still a narrow one: a handful of approved uses, a few large systems, and companies working to make them easier to install and run.

We've found a lot of interesting signals. For example, in November 2025, EDAP won FDA 510(k) clearance for new imaging and planning software on Focal One, its robotic system for treating prostate cancer. And in February 2026, Insightec received a Canadian license for Exablate Prime, its newest system for treating essential tremor, which works with MRI scanners from Philips, GE and Siemens. The leaders are not chasing new miracles. They're making the treatments they already sell faster and easier for more hospitals to offer.

In this section, we look at which treatments already get paid for, which ones are getting close, and what it takes for a hospital to buy a system.

Many patients with a tremor, a tumor or prostate cancer would rather avoid surgery, but few hospitals offer anything in between.

We compare six kinds of focused ultrasound companies, from MRI-guided brain treatments to prostate systems, histotripsy and brain stimulation. Their buyers include academic hospitals, urology groups, cancer centers and drug companies. Then we rank what matters most to them, like the cost of the system, time spent in the scanner, and whether insurers will pay.

This shows which treatments justify buying a system, and which ones still need more evidence.

System sales, per-treatment fees, disposables, service contracts, shared-revenue deals with hospitals and partnerships with drug companies: focused ultrasound companies make money in several ways.

We compare who pays and what it costs. A hospital pays a lot for a system, then needs enough patients to keep it busy. Some makers place or rent the system instead, and earn a fee on every treatment. Brain stimulation startups may sell to clinics or partner with drug companies, and blood-brain barrier players depend on drugs that need help reaching the brain.

You'll see which models still work when a hospital treats only a few patients a week, and which ones need insurers to pay first.

Growth here depends on what gets approved and paid for next, so we go through each driver.

Some are easy to see: aging patients, demand for treatments without cuts or hospital stays, and better imaging. Others feed each other. Each newly approved use helps a hospital fill a system it already owns. More treated patients give insurers the evidence they ask for. And if drug companies start relying on ultrasound to get drugs into the brain, the whole field gains a new kind of customer.

Before building or investing, you should know what it takes for a hospital to buy a system, and to keep enough patients going through it.

Insightec and EDAP sell the systems most doctors have heard of, one for tremor and the other for prostate cancer, but they're only one layer of this market.

Many of the most interesting players are still small. Some are building devices that open the blood-brain barrier for brain cancer or Alzheimer's drugs. Others make wearable systems that stimulate the brain without surgery, pair ultrasound with a drug to treat tumors, or treat varicose veins and thyroid nodules in an outpatient room.

They're hard to compare because each one targets a different organ, uses a different kind of imaging, and sits at a different stage, from lab tests to approved products. From the outside, a good early result in a few patients can look a lot like a finished product.

Below, you'll find the market grids and ecosystem maps we've built to show who treats what, and where newer companies are getting in.

Profound Medical, Theraclion, Nudge… a few focused ultrasound companies are pulling ahead, each at a very different stage.

Profound Medical treats prostate cancer with an MRI-guided device placed in the urethra, and US doctors got permanent billing codes for it in 2025. Theraclion sells an ultrasound system that treats varicose veins in Europe. Nudge raised $100M to build ultrasound that stimulates the brain without surgery, and is still in clinical trials. One has a path to payment, one has an outpatient niche, one has a big idea and plenty of cash. None has proven its model across many hospitals yet.

We'll look at how these teams picked their first treatment, and what each path teaches about getting from approval to steady sales.