Acutus Medical (Nasdaq:AFIB) Chief Translational Science Officer Dr. Steven Mickelsen recently announced he is stepping down to focus on patient care and new cardiac innovation.
Mickelsen has been with the company for three years and led the design team to create a pulsed field ablation waveform to expand the capabilities of the company’s AcQblate contact-force ablation catheter. The announcement comes at the same time Acutus Medical appointed David Roman as its new president and CEO, taking the “interim” out of his title.
Upon his departure from the company, Mickelsen will dedicate his additional time to caring for heart-rhythm patients at his clinical practice in La Jolla, California and will continue educating as an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Iowa.
Later this year, Mickelsen announced he will begin a new business venture called Field Medical to create the next generation of cardiac ablation technology. The venture has begun seed funding and has established a board of directors and senior leadership team.
“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,” Mickelsen said in a news release. “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.”
