Guardian has expanded its relationship with the Aurum Institute for Health Research to include collaboration on product development and commercialization, as well as marketing and distribution rights in South Africa for Guardian's prototype designed to automatically detect and quantify tuberculosis.

The Herndon, Va.-based company anticipates that the Johannesburg, South Africa-based Aurum's distribution rights will extend to additional automated pathology products developed as a result of this collaboration, as well as additional international markets. Aurum will be responsible for the marketing, sales, installation, training and ongoing customer support within its geographical markets.

Both companies agreed to collaborate in the further development of a full product suite for pathology, as well as fully automated imaging analysis systems for the early identification and quantification of tuberculosis, silicosis and other infectious and non-infectious diseases, Guardian said.

Using Signature Mapping technology integrated into a digital pathology workflow system will improve diagnostic detection accuracy, reduce diagnostic processing time and lower the cost to analyze sputum microscopy specimens for tuberculosis, according to the company.