Noul inks $1.1 mil. deal with Nihon Kohden to push AI blood tests across Latin America
Korean diagnostics company Noul has signed a $1.1 million, three-year supply deal with Nihon Kohden Mexico, the local arm of a Japanese diagnostics firm, to bring its AI-powered blood analysis system to hospitals across the country.
Finalized Monday, the agreement grants exclusive rights to four of Noul’s products: the miLab BCM platform, diagnostic cartridges, software, and consumables.
The deal runs through June 2028 and renews automatically each year unless terminated in advance. The total value is set at $1,092,000, with $208,000 allocated in the first year, $364,000 in the second, and $520,000 in the third.
The contract follows more than a year of performance testing by Nihon Kohden Mexico, according to a Monday release from Noul. The company plans to roll out miLab in under-resourced clinical settings, citing its speed and ease of use.
According to Noul, miLab delivers lab-grade results in 15 to 20 minutes with 80 percent less labor than peripheral blood smears, which require overnight processing and manual review to spot infections, anemia, or blood cancers.
“This partnership confirms the competitiveness of our AI-based solution on a global scale,” CEO David Lim said in a statement. With performance validation now in hand, Lim added, Noul expects the deal to “accelerate expansion into other regional subsidiaries across the Middle East and Europe.”
The company is positioning Mexico as a launchpad for broader expansion across the Americas. The new agreement follows earlier distribution deals in six Central American countries -- Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic -- with product launches in Brazil and Peru expected next.
The expansion comes as Noul faces pressure to scale. At a February press conference, Lim laid out plans to sell more than 2,000 miLab units and turn a profit before 2027. At the time, Lim said the company had sold just 135 units since listing on Kosdaq in 2022.
Most of its previous revenue came from a single malaria cartridge. While 2024 showed a sharp decline, the first quarter of 2025 brought signs of recovery, with revenue rising more than 4,700 percent year-over-year to 1.393 billion won (roughly $1 million), according to April filings.