Medical Device Makers Vow 5,000 To 7,000 Ventilators A Week

Makers of ventilators say they will ramp up production of the respiratory devices to between 5,000 and 7,000 a week “in the coming weeks” as the number of sick patients from the Coronavirus strain COVID-19 spreads across the U.S.

The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) Wednesday said its member respiratory device companies “have dramatically expanded the limits of their present production capacity” and are now producing 2,000-3,000 ventilators on average, according to a survey of seven companies. AdvaMed’s member companies that make ventilators include Draeger, GE Healthcare, Hillrom, Medtronic, Philips, ResMed and Vyaire Medical.

“In the coming weeks, company officials expect to ramp production to unprecedented levels, producing between an aggregated 5,000 and 7,000 ventilators per week in meeting the greatest needs across the nation,” AdvaMed said in a statement released Wednesday, citing a survey of companies March 25 through Tuesday of this week. The announcement comes U.S. hospitals in desperate need of ventilators are being hit hard by cases of Coronavirus expected to hurtle past 190,000, according to Wednesday’s latest tallies.

The production projected would be 10 times what is typically produced sometime in the second quarter, which began Wednesday. In 2019, these same companies were producing just 700 ventilators per week for U.S. distribution, AdvaMed said.

“This historic response is nothing short of extraordinary,” said Scott Whitaker, president and CEO of AdvaMed. “Across the board, our ventilator members have boosted production by more than 285% to meet the demands of this global crisis.”

Some of these companies, including GE Healthcare and Medtronic, are partnering with automakers to ramp up production with Tesla, Ford and General Motors forming alliances with ventilator manufacturers. The figures released by AdvaMed do not, however, include “recently-announced partnerships with groups such as the automotive industry,” the trade group said. 

The making of ventilators is complicated and requires component parts from around the world, the makers of ventilators say.

“It is not a simple proposition to make a ventilator,” Whitaker told reporters in a briefing last week. “Ventilators (are made of) 1,700 separate parts.”

But ventilator makers are taking steps to ease production for automakers and others. Last month, for example, Medtronic said it would share design specifications for a basic ventilator model with any company, according to reports.  



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