Zargis Medical Corp has signed a licensing agreement with Johns Hopkins University and its Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).APL is a division of Johns Hopkins devoted to research and development projects and their commercialization.

Under the agreement, Zargis will have exclusive access to JHU's large and growing database of heart sounds.This will not only enable Zargis to expedite the validation of its novel acoustic technology, which was developed at Siemens Corporate Research over the past six years, but also to accelerate its clinical adoption.The technology is based on a signal processing system and proprietary algorithms that analyze heart sounds acquired through a digital stethoscope.The Zargis system is designed to identify potential heart abnormalities, by flagging acoustic anomalies including heart murmurs.

The JHU database, which has been assembled under the direction of pediatric cardiologist W. Reid Thompson, contains heart sound recordings from a wide variety of patients.Included in the database are patient demographic information, relevant historical and general physical examination data, electrocardiography signals and (ECG) diagnoses, echocardiographic diagnoses, and ausculatory findings made by a clinician using a traditional stethoscope.

"Access to this database," notes Shahram Hejazi, , chief executive officer of Zargis, "will enable us to demonstrate that we can detect various normal and abnormal heart sounds from a large pre-recorded clinical database using our technology. This validation will confirm that the Zargis Acoustic Cardioscan (ZACS) product can be used to help physicians detect cardiac abnormalities."

Under the licensing agreement, Zargis also will have exclusive rights to JHU-APL's intellectual property in the area of heart sound analysis as well as access to their outstanding clinical and scientific staff who will supplement Zargis' research and development capabilities to enhance future products.

As part the agreement, which will take effect immediately, JHU-APL will have the right to acquire equity shares in Zargis Corporation.Currently, Zargis is a privately held company.