Dr. Steven Mickelsen Departs Acutus Medical to Re-Focus Efforts on Device Innovation & Patient Care

CARDIFF-BY-THE-SEA, Calif., July 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Renown cardiac electrophysiologist, Doctor Steven Mickelsen, a pioneer in the field of pulse field ablation (PFA) technology, today announces his departure as Chief Translational Science Officer at Acutus Medical to re-focus efforts on his passion for patient care and new cardiac device innovation.  

Dr. Mickelsen will now dedicate additional time caring for heart-rhythm patients at his clinical practice at Scripps Medical Center in La Jolla California. He will also continue educating the next generation of medical professionals as Associate Professor of internal medicine at the University of Iowa, a position he has maintained since 2014 .   

In Q4 2022, Dr. Mickelsen will begin a new business venture called Field Medical to create the next generation of cardiac ablation technology. Seed funding is currently being secured along with the establishment of Board of Directors and senior leadership team, of which he intends to have a role. Additional details will be made available at that time.

Most recently, Dr. Mickelsen lead a design team at Acutus to advance a PFA waveform development to expand the capabilities of the existing AcQblate contact-force ablation catheter. The program was highly successful resulting in the PFA-CE clinical trials ongoing in Europe.

"The last three years with Acutus have been spectacular. I now see the success of the Acutus PFA program as one of my greatest contributions and accomplishments," said Dr. Mickelsen. "Currently there are about half a million ablation procedures performed each year to treat atrial fibrillation and PFA is being used more and more. However, there are another half a million cases performed to treat other arrhythmias that still use thermal ablation technologies. I want to bring the improved safety and efficacy demonstrated in PFA treatment of atrial fibrillation to the entire spectrum of heart rhythm problems. That is why I am most interested in the next generation of PEF devices that can be used to treat the entire spectrum of cardiac arrhythmias. My life's passion is to create innovative tools to treat the heart disease."

A recognized expert in cardiac ablation technology, Dr. Mickelsen is a pioneer in catheter ablation using pulsed electric field technology. In 2012, he found Farapulse (AKA Iowa Approach) a company largely credited with shifting paradigms in the way physicians now treat the world's most common clinical arrhythmia—atrial fibrillation. Farapulse was acquired by Boston Scientific for $295M and is the first PFA ablation system approved for the European market. Doctor Mickelsen is the inventor of novel PFA technology developed at University of Iowa where he worked tirelessly to tackle technical challenges for designing waveforms to work with existing catheters. After receiving his medical degree from The University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Dr. Mickelsen was a Research Scholar at Howard Hughes Medical Institute as well as a Resident Physician at Mayo Clinic.  

SOURCE Dr. Steven Mickelsen