{"id":559472,"date":"2026-04-30T22:06:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/559472\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T22:06:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:06:23","slug":"jj-starts-head-to-head-pfa-trial-against-boston-scientific-device","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/559472\/","title":{"rendered":"J&J starts head-to-head PFA trial against Boston Scientific device"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This story was originally published on MedTech Dive<\/a>. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily MedTech Dive newsletter<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Dive Brief: <\/p>\n

Johnson & Johnson has started<\/a> a head-to-head clinical trial comparing its pulsed field ablation platform to Boston Scientific\u2019s rival system.<\/p>\n

The study, disclosed Friday, will compare J&J\u2019s Varipulse Pro platform and Boston Scientific\u2019s Farapulse PFA system in up to 466 people with persistent atrial fibrillation.<\/p>\n

J&J, which entered the PFA market<\/a> after Boston Scientific and Medtronic,\u00a0suffered an early setback when safety concerns triggered a pause<\/a> in U.S. use of the original Varipulse system.<\/p>\n

Dive Insight: <\/p>\n

J&J has a large electrophysiology business that could be threatened by the rise of PFA. The company said competitive pressures<\/a> in PFA partially offset growth in other parts of the business in the fourth quarter of 2025, although it named Varipulse<\/a> as a driver of the 12.6% electrophysiology growth<\/a> reported in the first quarter of 2026.<\/p>\n

Boston Scientific is a cause of the competitive pressures felt by J&J, with the company reporting rapid electrophysiology growth<\/a> that exceeded 100% early last year. Farapulse growth subsequently slowed<\/a> as competition increased, but Boston Scientific remains a major player in the PFA market.\u00a0<\/p>\n

J&J\u2019s head-to-head study could ease its pressures and increase the pressure on Boston Scientific, although the trial could backfire if Farapulse beats Varipulse. The study is comparing<\/a> the rate of adverse events in the seven days after treatment and freedom from atrial tachyarrhythmia episodes starting on day 61 of the trial.<\/p>\n

The Food and Drug Administration has yet to authorize the Varipulse Pro platform studied in the trial. J&J received a CE mark<\/a> for the platform this month. In its first-quarter results, the company included the platform on a list of products with U.S. approvals and regulatory submissions planned for this year. J&J used a new, faster pulse sequence with Varipulse Pro that it claims makes ablation five times faster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Comparing Varipulse Pro to Farapulse will help healthcare professionals \u201cbetter understand how they perform relative to one another and make more informed treatment decisions in daily practice,\u201d Devi Nair, a physician at St. Bernard\u2019s Medical Center and co-national study principal investigator of the trial, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Recommended Reading <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published on MedTech Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[187257,11170,102,2960,5941,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-559472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-boston-scientific","tag-clinical-trial","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-johnson-johnson","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}