About Us

CardiaLen, Inc. was formed in 2008 to develop and commercialize pain-free cardioversion therapy, with a primary focus on atrial fibrillation (AF). The company, co-located in St. Louis, MO, and St. Paul, MN, is developing implantable low-energy (low voltage) pain-free atrial cardioverters to help address the major unmet needs of this condition.  AF is the most common cardiac arrhythmia worldwide and has been recently estimated to affect over 3.0 million people in the United States.  AF, unlike ventricular fibrillation (VF), is not immediately life threatening.  However, AF greatly increases the risk of stroke and premature death, impairs quality of life and generates high healthcare costs. Current therapies (drugs, external cardioversion, catheter ablation and surgery of various types) do not fully meet AF patient needs.

Pain-free operation is essential since AF patients typically remain conscious during episodes and since the condition is not immediately life threatening.

CardiaLen plans to commercialize its pain-free atrial cardioverters as an independent, cardiovascular device entity.  No implantable cardioverter that focuses primarily on AF is currently available because it has previously not been possible to achieve painless cardioversion.

The company’s low-voltage technology will also offer significant benefit in ventricular tachyarrhythmias and management plans to develop ventricular applications in collaboration with strategic industry partners.

CardiaLen low-energy cardioversion technology is based on breakthrough work by Professor Igor Efimov, PhD, a world leader in cardiac arrhythmia research, currently at Washington University in St. Louis Biomedical Engineering school and previously at Case Western Reserve University.  Prof. Efimov and his research colleagues discovered that very low-voltage shock, applied in proprietary algorithms, induces virtual electrode polarization (VEP) at cardiac heterogeneities and opens a new approach to the long sought after goal of pain-free defibrillation.