Zoll Medical and Inovise Medical Pair to Improve Cardiac Device

Zoll Medical Corporation, a manufacturer of medical devices and related software solutions, has agreed to license Inovise Medical Inc.’s ambulatory Audicor technology as part of the advanced patient diagnostics in the LifeVest Wearable Defibrillator.

According to the American Heart Association, an estimated 83 million Americans currently are living with cardiovascular disease (CVD). CVD is responsible for one-third of all deaths annually, or more than 2,200 deaths per day, in the United States. The risk of sudden cardiac death is the highest in the days and weeks following an acute cardiac event and during the period of medical therapy optimization, such as adjusting a pharmacologic regimen to treat heart failure.

The LifeVest Wearable Defibrillator, used by patients at risk for sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), is designed to provide protection during their changing medical condition and until their permanent risk of SCA is established. The LifeVest protects these patients during this time of highest risk while they are being optimized on medical therapy. A patient’s condition has been known to improve from the benefits of medical therapy, including meaningful improvement in ejection fraction (the volumetric fraction of blood pumped out of the heart with each heart beat).

With the addition of the diagnostic features from Inovise, Zoll hopes LifeVest will expand the suite of clinically meaningful patient information available to physicians and clinicians to support clinical decisions. In addition to ambulatory monitoring of electrocardiography (commonly known as ECG), Inovise Medical’s Audicor technology analyzes heart sounds (acoustic cardiography) to provide more diagnostic capabilities and aid in assessing acute and chronic cardiac function for conditions such as heart failure and related comorbidities.

“Inovise’s Audicortechnology was developed through years of focused clinical research and algorithm development,” said Peter Bauer, president of Inovise Medical. “We are pleased that, in conjunction with the success of Zoll’s LifeVest product line, physicians and clinicians will have access to our advanced diagnostics to monitor patients during the most vulnerable stages of their cardiac recovery. Inovise is proud to provide the benefits of our ambulatory diagnostic technology to the life-saving therapy of the LifeVest.”

Zoll Medical is an Asahi Kasei Group company based in Chelmsford, Mass.

Inovise Medical is an advanced cardiac technology company based in Portland, Ore.