Advanced Cardiac Therapeutics raised $45 million in equity, which will drive a global clinical development program for its next-generation ablation catheter for the treatment of atrial fibrillation and other arrhythmias.
An irregular heartbeat, atrial fibrillation affects at least 2.7 million Americans, according to the American Heart Association. The condition can lead to blood clots, stroke and heart failure, among other complications. It is treated with catheter ablation, which makes small scars in the heart tissue so that it can no longer carry the arrhythmia.
Advanced Cardiac Therapeutics (ACT) is developing a catheter ablation system that combines temperature control, contact sensing and high-resolution electrogram recording for the treatment of afib.
In addition to funding a clinical development program, the funds will also support bids for regulatory approvals in Europe and the U.S., according to a statement.
“ACT’s continued impressive progress in building a highly differentiated, next generation solution for catheter ablation has been remarkable. We are equally enthusiastic to welcome Ajax and Questa as our financial partners in supporting the ACT team’s efforts to take the treatment of atrial fibrillation to a new level,” said Justin Klein, M.D., a partner at New Enterprise Associates, which led the financing alongside Ajax Health and Questa Capital Management.
In March, CardioFocus and MedLumics both reeled in some funding for their ablation catheters. The former netted $20 million to boost the commercialization of its endoscopic ablation system, while the latter bagged $37 million to support clinical trials of its optically guided ablation catheter.
Meanwhile, San Diego-based Acutus Medical is working on an ablation system that tracks a patient’s arrhythmia in real time and provides the electrophysiologist with a three-dimensional view of the heart's atrium and its electrical activity. The company seeks to substantially improve the success rate of ablation procedures, which currently rely on low-resolution, voltage-based mapping.