Dyson is making an entirely new ventilator meant to help Covid-19 patients -- 10 days after the company's founder got a call from British prime minister Boris Johnson, who himself has tested positive for coronavirus.
The U.K. company known best for making vacuums, air purifiers, and hair dryers is making 15,000 of these ventilators dubbed CoVent -- photos of which were released on March 25.
Can be manufactured quickly
British billionaire founder James Dyson, 72, said in a letter to employees the CoVent can be “manufactured quickly, efficiently and at volume”.
It is a bed-mounted, portable ventilator that can run from battery power in field-hospital conditions, and was specifically designed with coronavirus patients in mind.
“A ventilator supports a patient who is no longer able to maintain their own airways, but sadly there is currently a significant shortage, both in the U.K. and other countries around the world,” read the letter.
“The core challenge was how to design and deliver a new, sophisticated medical product in volume and in an extremely short space of time. The race is now on to get it into production.”
Not entirely a Dyson-only initiative
Out of the 15,000 ventilators being manufactured, 10,000 will be used domestically, while Dyson will donate 5,000 units -- 1,000 to the U.K. and 4,000 to other countries.
As ventilators are regulated products, Dyson will have to work under a grant from the U.K. government, with oversight from the U.K. National Health Service and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
No specific timeline for delivery of products have been given though.
Previous reports have mentioned that American companies, including GM, Ford, and Tesla, have expressed a willingness to produce ventilators to address current shortages, but say it could take months to convert such vehicle manufacturers to ventilator production.
The medical technology used by existing ventilators is proprietary, which is an indication there could be some lag time.
Many articles online have characterised the role Dyson could play in building these ventilators, making it appear as though the private company could just kick start production and have come up with a design within 10 days.
Dyson is not having a go at manufacturing ventilators alone as it is collaborating with The Technology Partnership (TTP), a Cambridge-based group of science and innovation companies with expertise in medical equipment.
Dyson believes it can meet the government’s requirements by deploying knowledge in areas where there is some crossover between its products and ventilators.
These include digital motors, battery packs, expertise in airflow, and HEPA filters, which block fine particles but not air.