AF Ablation: The Pulse of Innovation

The atrial fibrillation market has attracted the attention of a large number of established and emerging cardiovascular device companies over the past several years, all hoping to cash in on the huge demand for a simple, safe, and effective therapy that can permanently cure this common, and often debilitating, heart arrhythmia. Most of the research to date has focused on energy-based methods both surgical and percutaneous - to destroy aberrant electrical triggers in the heart that are believed to initiate and perpetuate AF. But no one has yet received FDA approval for a catheter-based ablation tool, a milestone that is widely recognized as key to full penetration of this market. To be sure, they have come close. But obtaining an FDA indication for the more complex AF ablation procedure has proven a much more difficult goal.