Neko Health Lands in New York With 25,000 on Its Waitlist
Neko Health opened its first U.S. clinic in SoHo on September 24 and already counts 25,000 New Yorkers on its waitlist. Doctors warn of false positives and overdiagnosis.
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The takeaway
- Neko Health debuted in the U.S. in SoHo, New York, on September 24; more than 25,000 New Yorkers have joined the waitlist, after a 300,000-person waitlist in London.
- A Neko scan costs $499 in the U.S. and £299 in the U.K.; it captures 453 body data points, 10 seconds of ECG data and 49 blood biomarkers in 20 minutes.
- A New England Journal of Medicine study found a 15-fold rise in thyroid cancer diagnoses in South Korea over two decades with virtually no mortality impact, a key argument cited by critics of broad screening.
More than 25,000 New Yorkers have joined the waitlist for a Neko Health scan since the company opened its first U.S. facility in SoHo on September 24. A Miami location will follow. When Neko launched in London, it drew a 300,000-person waitlist.
Neko is one of several body-scanning companies — Prenuvo, Ezra and Fountain Life among them — turning full-body diagnostics into a luxury wellness category alongside infrared saunas and spa retreats. Kim Kardashian called Prenuvo a "lifesaving device." Joe Amabile, a former Bachelor contestant, had a recent Prenuvo scan find an early-stage brain tumor, which surgeons removed in a craniotomy. Vyrao founder Yasmin Sewell posted about Neko on Instagram, likening it to "stepping into the future" and saying the design "felt like a Prada store mixed with some Gattaca vibes."
The technology differs from the CT scans Oprah Winfrey popularized on her show in 2000. The new tools are radiation-free and often MRI-based. Prenuvo and others offer MRI services, while Neko takes a different approach. Its 20-minute scan captures 453 data points on the body — moles and freckles included — via high-resolution cameras, records 10 seconds of ECG heart rhythm data, and measures 49 blood biomarkers. It also maps the heart and circulatory system, assesses microcirculation and vascular health with a laser vibrometer, and uses a standard blood pressure cuff. A Neko scan costs £299 in the U.K. and $499 in the U.S. Internal MRI scans of the head and torso can run to thousands of dollars.
"Usually most people in their 20s and 30s don't have chronic disease, but sometimes we can see the very early stages of something that maybe years later could cause a lot of pain, a high medical cost, or a shortened lifespan," says Andrew Lacy, founder and CEO of Prenuvo. "When you come back the next year, we can see what's improving," says Mert Aral, MD, head of medical innovation at Neko.
The scans can catch real danger. Sarah Blackburn, a Texas mother, got a Prenuvo scan at 30 to supplement her yearly physicals. Her results flagged an "urgent finding": aneurysms in her spleen, which carry a high mortality rate if they rupture and are impossible to detect without imaging. ER doctors later told her a minor car accident might have killed her, and they recommended removing her spleen. "I did not foresee my Prenuvo scan going like that," says Blackburn, now a year and a half past surgery. "Now that I'm on the other side, what a blessing to have had that information before it was too late."
That outcome cuts both ways. "They can detect incidental findings that may never cause harm, but could lead to unnecessary testing, biopsies, and procedures," says Eleonora Teplinsky, MD, a breast and gynecological oncologist in New Jersey. She points to South Korea, where scanning is common. A study in The New England Journal of Medicine found a 15-fold increase in thyroid cancer diagnoses there over two decades with virtually no change in mortality. The detected papillary thyroid tumors almost never become clinically dangerous — but patients who know about an abnormality often act on it.
False positives, whose rates vary by scan type and radiologist, can trigger additional screenings and biopsies that carry their own risks. False negatives happen too. "We don't want the full-body MRI to give this illusion that you're completely healthy," Teplinsky says. Lacy counters with Prenuvo's own clinical data: "For one in every two people who get a biopsy [after a Prenuvo scan], it ends up coming back positive for cancer. Biopsies after traditional breast cancer screening for women [like mammograms] have a much lower positive rate — one in every five biopsies actually ends up as cancer. These tests are a lot more accurate than people think." MRIs can also find small breast lesions that mammograms sometimes miss, but patients should still get their recommended mammograms and colonoscopies.
The trend has already gone international on social media. Health influencers on TikTok travel to Korea and Turkey for scans at a fraction of U.S. prices.
With waitlists in the tens of thousands and celebrity endorsement fueling demand, body scanning has moved from niche diagnostics to mainstream wellness commerce — leaving clinicians to balance genuine early detection against the cost and anxiety of finding what may never need treating.
Original: vyrao.com
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Correspondent covering media and advertising at Eurasian Beauty Journal.
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