In response to the COVID-19 crisis, a team of ventilator and pulmonary experts have joined forces to form Co-Vents, a non-profit technology and services company focused on closing the short-term supply gap for life-saving ventilators while current device manufacturers, General Motors, Ford and Tesla ramp production.
“Our team could not stand by and watch patients suffer without access to ICU ventilators,” Paul Woodring, CEO and Co-Founder of Co-Vents, said. “Over the past three decades, we have designed, built, manufactured and sold the leading ventilators in the world. We have assembled an all-star roster from those businesses to help fill this 90-day ventilator gap for our country while new ventilator production ramps up.”
Co-Vents will draw upon its long history in the manufacturing of leading-edge respiratory ventilators to refurbish “retired” ventilators and quickly bring them to market to address the pandemic of respiratory illness brought on by the coronavirus. For patients whose breathing has been significantly compromised by the virus, ventilators deliver air to the lungs to help keep these patients alive. Our average turnaround time from ventilator donation to live clinical use will be just over a week.
BCG estimates that there are over 100,000 ventilators that have been retired from active service in the United States, and more than 20,000 of these ventilators could quickly return with minor servicing.
Co-Vents has been formed as a 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation that can accept donations to help accelerate our mission. Co-Vents has already secured its first large private grant, which will deliver ventilators to patients in the areas hardest hit by the Coronavirus including rural critical access hospitals. The team is actively working with individual states, as well as the White House Coronavirus Task Force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, on this life-saving mission.
“Our team is passionate about bridging the ventilator supply gap for COVID-19 patients. Every ventilator that we return to service will represent lives our team has helped save,” Co-Founder Michael Raymer said.
