Philips, US to increase ventilator production amid Covid-19 outbreak

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The US Government and Royal Philips are set to collaborate to increase the production of hospital ventilators in the company’s manufacturing sites in the country.

The collaboration follows a recent call to action by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to tackle global coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

Philips will work with the US Government to accelerate the access to critical materials, components, logistics and regulatory approvals to ramp up the ventilator production.

By May, the company intends to double the production and achieve a four-fold increase by the third quarter of the year for supply to the US and international markets.

Royal Philips CEO Frans Houten said: “There is an unprecedented global demand for medical equipment to help diagnose and treat patients with Covid-19. We welcome the support of the US Government in our efforts to aggressively increase the production of hospital ventilators.

“We believe in fair allocation of scarce medical equipment to those who need it the most and we are ramping up to deliver 43,000 units to the most critical regions in the US in the coming weeks and months through December 2020.”

Royal Philips has delivered several ventilators to US hospitals this year and an additional batch of ventilators to one of New York’s hospitals as a result of the increase in production.

The company noted that ventilators are critical for the treatment of patients with coronavirus. Philips is planning to invest in its ventilator manufacturing sites in the US.

Furthermore, the ventilators may be delivered in phases to serve multiple countries and regions simultaneously.