Today Medtronic announced its entrance into a definitive agreement to acquire privately held, Boston-based Affera, Inc. The company designs and manufactures cardiac mapping and navigation systems, and catheter-based cardiac ablation technologies. The addition will complement Medtronic’s atrial and ventricular arrhythmia disease management product portfolio and will help the company address a growing patient population.

“The EP [electrophysiology] ablation market is an exciting and fast-moving segment of cardiology. Bringing Affera into our organization, with our established footprint in the cardiac ablation space, will strengthen our ability to provide innovative therapies and enable Medtronic entry into additional EP technology segments, such as mapping and navigation, for the first time.” – Rebecca Seidel, president of Medtronic’s Cardiac Ablation Solutions business

Medtronic estimates that the global EP ablation market is worth $8 billion. “The acquisition expands the Medtronic portfolio of advanced cardiac ablation products and accessories to meet physician needs within a growing patient population. Affera’s technologies include the Affera Prism-1 cardiac mapping and navigation platform and Sphere-9 cardiac ablation catheter, investigational technologies designed to enable the rapid creation of detailed maps used by electrophysiologists (EP) to diagnose arrhythmias and deliver cardiac ablation therapy, respectively,” according to Medtronic’s press release about the news. “The Affera full-suite of solutions and technologies will complement the existing Medtronic atrial and ventricular arrhythmia disease management portfolio and support the company’s efforts to offer simple, safe, and effective cardiac ablation solutions to improve patient outcomes.”

The deal is anticipated to close during the first half of Medtronic’s 2023 fiscal year.