Acutus Medical and Innovative Health have announced a partnership in electrophysiology that they say will offer advanced technology to improve patient outcomes in a cost-efficient manner. A joint press release from the two venture-backed companies says that they will team together to offer hospital customers a comprehensive suite of electrophysiology (EP) products, including Acutus’ next generation EP mapping and accessory products, as well as a portfolio of reprocessed single-use EP devices from a range of manufacturers.
Acutus will also work proactively with Innovative Health to gain clearances, as appropriate, to market reprocessed versions of certain proprietary Acutus products—a move that the press release describes as a “highly novel approach for a venture-backed device company”. It says that the goal of the partnership is to simultaneously rein in per-procedure costs while freeing up hospital budget dollars for emerging new technologies that hold the prospect of improving clinical outcomes and speeding up procedure times.
Acutus Medical is an arrhythmia care company focused on cardiac imaging and mapping systems to provide real-time arrhythmia visualisation. It provides technologies and products for electrophysiology diagnostic and ablation procedures through an open platform that enables personalised and adaptive approaches to arrhythmia therapy.
Innovative Health is a specialty EP reprocessing company that collects, reprocesses and returns single-use labelled EP catheters to hospitals. According to the press release, this reduces each atrial fibrillation (AF) procedure’s device costs by as much as 30%. The company holds formal US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearances to reprocess many high-complexity EP devices, such as mapping catheters, diagnostic ultrasound catheters, and introducer sheaths, allowing, says the press release, Innovative Health hospital partners to increase their savings compared to other reprocessing programmes.
Vince Burgess, CEO of Acutus Medical, states: “Hospitals and health systems are often forced to compromise on innovation in their procedural approaches due to cost constraints. To challenge the incumbents and change the status quo, we feel that we need to bring both disruptive technologies and a disruptive business model to the field. It is highly unconventional for a VC-backed medtech company to embrace reprocessing – but we feel that this is a must, where safe and appropriate.
And, Rick Ferreira, CEO of Innovative Health, comments in the joint statement: “We are joining Acutus in their effort to disrupt the electrophysiology treatment landscape because, together, we can create real change. We can bring advanced diagnostics, effective treatments, and cost-effective access to hospitals and physicians. Our cost reduction model supports Acutus’ focus on improving outcomes for as many physicians and patients as possible, by enabling more patients to receive care with the best technology.”
