PATIENTS with brittle bones will soon be treated with a North-East tech firm’s equipment.

Kromek is supplying three customers with detector modules in a collective deal worth more than £900,000.

Bosses say the apparatus will help diagnose bone strength, meaning clinicians can monitor osteoporosis more closely and deliver better treatment.

The contracts are expected to be delivered over the next two years.

Dr Arnab Basu, Kromek chief executive, said: “It is very pleasing to secure double the orders we received from these long-standing customers last year.

“The agreements represent the continued healthy conversion of our pipeline into orders as we continue to win new contracts in the medical sector.”

Last month, Kromek, based at NetPark, in Sedgefield, County Durham, revealed it had completed the first part of a contract to help fight terrorism after sending an initial 10,000 personal radiation detectors to DARPA, an agency of the US Department of Defense.

The equipment helps identify acts of terrorism, such as a ‘dirty bomb’, by picking up the tiniest traces of radioactive materials.

The business also revealed other contracts worth in excess of £2.5m, which will see it work with the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency on radiation detectors, the UK’s Ministry of Defence on nuclear radiation detection products and an Asian airport group on bottle scanners.