Another Player Enters the PFA Fray

AtriCure is the latest player to throw its hat into pulsed-field ablation. The Mason, OH-based company revealed plans during an earnings call earlier this week.

Michael Carrel, president and CEO, spoke about the move to PFA because of the impact the procedures have had on AtriCure’s Hybrid AF therapy.

“To build on that point, we believe that continuous innovation in the afib therapies has grown patient treatment across all markets,” Carrel said according to a Seeking Alpha transcript of the call.  “Therefore, we are excited to announce that we have entered into an exclusive license and development agreement with an expert in the PFA field to accelerate the introduction of PFA technology to our cardiac surgery devices. Ultimately, we anticipate PFA will be another foundational element of our portfolio of epicardial surgical ablation devices. We expect to announce more details on our PFA development program and clinical progress early next year.”

The PFA field is filling up quickly. Medtronic won FDA approval for its PulseSelect PFA system late last year. Boston Scientific won approval for its Farapulse system at the beginning of the year. Johnson & Johnson and Abbott Laboratories are working on developing PFA solutions.