April 30, 2019
Ablacon, Inc. today announced the closing of a $21.5 million Series A financing round led by Ajax Health. Ablacon is a Wheat Ridge, CO-based company developing an advanced mapping system to guide the treatment of atrial fibrillation (AFib).
Ablacon notes their novel algorithm uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze and visualize the flow of action potentials, or Electrographic Flow, within the heart in order to identify sources and drivers of AFib, the most common cardiac arrhythmia worldwide. The map of the Electrographic Flow can help to guide physicians in targeted catheter ablation therapy. The company will use the Series A funding to advance its technology pipeline and finance clinical trials.
“The Ablacon system is a very promising innovation in AFib mapping,” said Vivek Reddy, MD, the Helmsley Trust Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. “The early clinical experience indicates tremendous promise of this technology to improve our ability to treat this challenging disease.”
“The idea to leverage techniques and algorithms from computer vision to analyze electric signals in the heart is ingenious. Ablacon combines concepts from both the medical world and machine intelligence in a way that I think is very promising,” said Leibniz Prize holder Daniel Cremers, Professor and Chair for Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition at the Technical University of Munich.
As part of the investment, Ajax Health CEO, Duke Rohlen will join Ablacon as Chairman and CEO. Duke’s track record of successful medical technology exits includes EPIX Therapeutics, Spirox, CV Ingenuity, and FoxHollow Technologies.
“Since our first meeting with Ablacon, we have been impressed with the caliber of the team and the promise of the technology to improve patient care in AFib. I’m thrilled to join the team to advance this exciting project,” said Rohlen. Ablacon’s Founder and former CEO, Professor Peter Ruppersberg, will remain with the company as President and Chief Scientific Officer. “We look forward to working with Duke and his team of experienced healthcare executives to bring this technology to market,” said Ruppersberg.