Originally published Field Medical Aims At Arrhythmia Market MEDTECH: Closes $75M in Funding in Under 4 Months By Eli Walsh on by https://www.sdbj.com/life-sciences/medical-devices/field-medical-aims-at-arrhythmia-market-medtech-closes-75m-in-funding-in-under-4-months-by-eli-walsh/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=field-medical-aims-at-arrhythmia-market-medtech-closes-75m-in-funding-in-under-4-months-by-eli-walsh at San Diego Business Journal
https://www.sdbj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image086-150x150.jpg
CARDIFF – Steven Mickelsen believes he’s developed the tool of the future to treat heart arrhythmia.
Mickelsen, a board-certified clinical cardiac electrophysiologist, is one of the pioneers and lead proponents of treating arrhythmias with pulsed field ablation (PFA), which involves the use of electrical energy rather than the traditional treatment methods using thermal energy.
“It’s really just a very brief, very strong electric pulse that tricks the cells into going into cell death through a metabolic kind of attack, rather than just cooking it or freezing it to death,” Mickelsen said.
Mickelsen’s company, Field Medical, Inc., is aiming to produce the leading PFA treatment device for ventricular tachycardia (VT), a potentially deadly form of arrhythmia affecting the lower chamber of the heart that causes the heart to beat far faster than normal and can prompt sudden cardiac arrest.
A Treatment Beyond AFib
After spending much of his career focused on developing PFA treatment methods for atrial fibrillation, or AFib, an irregular and rapid heartbeat that can lead to cardiac blood clots, Mickelsen shifted his focus to VT, which he argued has been largely ignored by cardiologists and is the largest unmet need among arrhythmia patients.
“Everyone in my field … has been focused on treating the AFib space, but what we haven’t been very good at is treating the deadly arrhythmias in the ventricle,” he said. “You get a heart attack and then your heart is broken, and now you have some electrical circuits that can cause you to die through a mechanism called ventricular tachycardia.”
Mickelsen previously developed a PFA system for AFib at his prior company, Farapulse, Inc., which he sold to Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX) for $1.2 billion in 2021. He subsequently founded Field Medical the following year.
Field Medical received Breakthrough Device Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2024 for its FieldForce ablation system, as well as enrollment in the FDA’s Total Product Life Cycle Advisory Pilot Program. A year later, the company has raked in some $75 million with additional unsolicited interest from investors.
In April, the company closed a $40 million Series A funding round, including $20 million in new funding and $20 million in converted debt from Field’s seed round.
Less than three months later, Field Medical announced the closure of a $35 million Series B round, catalyzed by the company’s data presentation at a local conference hosted by the Heart Rhythm Society. BioStar Capital and Cue Growth co-led the round.
“Field Medical’s transformative technology is doing what few companies dare to do – tackling one of the most difficult and under-addressed challenges in cardiology with real innovation and urgency,” stated Louis Cannon, MD, founder and senior managing director of BioStar Capital. “Their physician-led team brings the right insight, and their FieldForce platform brings the right tools.”
Much of Field Medical’s initial funding also came from parties with a vested interest in the technology, with roughly two-thirds of seed investors being either working physicians or family offices that had a personal or familial experience with a VT patient.
Preparing for the Clinic, Commercial Market
The funding is expected to carry Field Medical to the beginning of its Ventricular Ectopy and Reduction in Tachycardia Ablation Studies, or VERITAS trial, which Mickelsen estimated could start by the middle of 2026.
The initial VERITAS trial will be focused on FieldForce’s treatment potential for VT, but Mickelsen said the company has ambitious plans for several future trials under the VERITAS banner targeting other forms of arrythmia such as premature ventricular contractions and ventricular fibrillation.
“We’re going to go after PVCs, we’re going to go after VF, we’re going to go after VT, we’re going to go after ischemic and non-ischemic VT,” he said. “All these things that are in the ventricle that we don’t have good tools for, we think we have the tool of the future.”
Mickelsen noted that companies developing Class III medical devices like FieldForce typically require between $90 million and $120 million in investment funding to bring their product to market, a range in which Field Medical expects to land comfortably.
Whether Field Medical would remain independent to get to that commercialization is another question, as major medical technology companies like Boston Scientific, Abbott, Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson have started to acquire startups at earlier stages prior to the completion of their pivotal trials, according to Mickelsen.
Based on market research paid for by Field Medical, some 5 million people in the U.S. and Europe would be eligible for a procedure using FieldForce or another PFA device to treat a ventricular arrhythmia.
Mickelsen argued the catheter ablation market is rapidly expanding, and that continued market growth can only be a positive both for Field Medical and VT patients who could have their lives saved by PFA technology.
“Our plan is to be the first … pulse field technology built for the ventricle,” he said. “Turns out it’s also really good in the atria – we’ve done some cases there too – but I feel like I’ve already solved the atrial problem, (it’s) time to pioneer the new place.”n
Field Medical, Inc.
FOUNDED: 2022
CEO: Steven Mickelsen, MD
HEADQUARTERS: Cardiff-by-the-Sea
BUSINESS: Pulsed field ablation technology to treat cardiac ablation
EMPLOYEES: 25
FUNDING: $75 million
WEBSITE: fieldmedicalinc.com
CONTACT: [email protected]
NOTABLE: Mickelsen is also a co-founder of Atraverse, a medical device company known for its development of HOTWIRE, a novel radiofrequency guidewire used to access the left atrium of the heart.
Director of Creative & Production
Originally published San Diego Business Journal