Abbott Acquires Topera for $250M, Gains Entré to Global AFib Market

human heart image (Credit: Depositphotos_2015 by © decade3d)

Abbott, the healthcare giant based near Chicago, IL, has acquired Topera, a venture-backed startup founded on diagnostic technology developed by a San Diego cardiologist to pinpoint the electrical impulses that drive abnormal heartbeats.

In a statement yesterday, Abbott said it would acquire all outstanding equity of Topera for $250 million upfront, with potential future payments tied to performance milestones.

In early January, the FDA cleared Topera’s 3D mapping system for diagnosing and treating atrial fibrillation, a common heart arrhythmia. The company has developed an innovative diagnostic catheter and mapping software that helps doctors identify the specific area of a person’s heart where abnormal electrical impulses perpetuate the irregular heart flutter.

Once pinpointed, doctors use a minimally invasive procedure known as cardiac catheter ablation to precisely freeze or cauterize the heart tissue responsible for the abnormal electrical activity.

Abbott said the Topera buyout would enable it to enter the global market for catheter-based electrophysiology, estimated at $3 billion and growing annually at double-digit rates.

Topera, based in Menlo Park, CA, raised $25 million last year in a Series C round led by New Enterprise Associates that included funding from an unnamed strategic industry partner. Topera has raised at least $31 million in total funding since it was founded near Boston in 2008.

Sanjiv Narayan, a UC San Diego researcher and cardiologist specializing in electrophysiology who practices at the San Diego VA Medical Center, developed the prototype diagnostic mapping technology with the help of Ruchir Sehra, a colleague who is now Topera’s chief medical officer.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.