Approximately one American life is lost every two minutes and it has been estimated that sudden cardiac death (SCD) claims more than 7 million lives per year worldwide, according to the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association. The overwhelming majority of those deaths are caused by ventricular fibrillation-rapid, uncoordinated contractions.

InnerPulse, a Research Triangle Park, NC-based medical device company, has developed a percutaneous implantable defibrillator (PICD) that enables physicians to implant the life-saving defibrillators within a patient's vasculature using a catheter procedure-making the procedure minimally invasive and less expensive. The company recently selected Abaqus finite element analysis (FEA) software from SIMULIA, Providence, RI, to assist in further development of its technology designed in SolidWorks CAD software.

Leveraging SolidWorks for design and the realistic simulation capabilities in Abaqus FEA software, InnerPulse design engineers are able to perform analysis for concurrent device and tool design, which saves development time and costs.