Melville MRI maker's stock soars on profit report

Fonar Corp. of Melville, a maker of magnetic imaging machines that allow patients to sit upright instead of lying down in a tunnel, had a breakthrough on earnings Tuesday that sent its stock price up 30 percent in the first hour of trading.

The company reports, in a Tuesday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, that it had net income of $1.8 million on net revenue of $9.3 million for the quarter ending Dec. 31, up from net income of $1.3 million on revenue of $8 million for the same quarter the previous year.

It's the company's second consecutive quarter of profitability.

The founder of the company is Dr. Raymond Damadian, an MRI pioneer known for his battle with the Nobel Prize board after he was excluded from a prize awarded for the technology.